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Look at the satellite images from Ukraine (and most any satellite images of non-town or non-wooded areas). Ideas/comments?

Design for effect. Cropland slows everyone down regardless of their mode of movement. I recently removed cropland from a scenario I was working on because I judged that leg infantry would have no difficulty moving across the ground because the field size is small and most fields in the area would likely have walkable paths all around the edges. In some other areas and at other times, you might have whole hexes dominated by heavy ploughed soil, or densely planted, high sprouting cereals (e.g. corn as high as an elephant's eye). I can tell you that walking across heavily ploughed fields can be difficult even in dry conditions and in these circumstances cropland would be entirely appropriate.

These croplands seem to have plenty of tracks and dirt roads servicing them. Looking at 1:100,000 ww2 maps of Europe what becomes apparent is that there are a large number of buildings scattered in amongst these fields. I think this slows down reconnaissance which in turn slows down movement. A number of these areas have intensive canal terrain can't be shown on TOAW. And of course as Golden Delicious pointed out mature corn or maize crops present a great opportunity for ambushes.
Vote 1 for crop lands

I agree completely. Cropland slows everybody down. Except they are laced with unmarked tracks...
So back to my original question. Do we need them?
How do we know a given hex is Open or Cropland? Is it arbitrary? Satellite imagery?
I have gone back to my fifteen scenarios in TOAW and changed all the Cropland to Open. Playing out PO vs PO does not seem to make much difference. But the map looks less cluttered.
In the big picture, like the Rivers on Hexsides debate, nothing is going to change the game design.
Thanks for your input.

The short answer is yes.

There are probably hundreds of scenarios that have used them over the last 20 years (thinking of all the scenario conversions from TOAW to ACOW to TOAW II, III and now IV).

So yes we need them.

Does your scenrio really need cropland hexes? That's the question. Cropland impedes movement with a +1 penalty. At the same time it enhances a unit's ability to disengage with a x1.5 increase to the unit's recon. Some heavily farmed land also has massive amounts of farm roads. A unit not in contact with the enemy will use the roads. A unit in contact or moving to contact likely won't. Instead they'll use cover regardless of roads (which btw typically is along the roads). Below is an area in Ukraine heavily farmed. Lots of farm roads. Grid lines are 10km. Same is true for most of Europe that has arable land.

Remember that season makes a difference - both for the satelite images and for scenarios. A winter satelite image (and a winter scenario) may lack cropland. Yet have them at other times. I'm anticipating terrain that changes with season down the road.