As we know, the vanilla SC4 game only let’s us make bridges over water – but what about all those other places over land where we need a bridge? And since when did we ever play SC4 vanilla? We want chocolate sauce and sprinkles and… oh sorry… getting carried away there.
To build a land bridge above sea level in SC4 requires a little bit of cunning, and a thing called Extra Terrain Tools.
Once you know the trick, it is pretty straight forward, and you can pretty much put a bridge anywhere you want to – but not on a diagonal, sorry about that.
First we need somewhere that needs a bridge. I recommend using the grid – press ‘G’ to toggle the grid on and off.
Here we have the start of a stream marked out with single road tiles that will require bridging.
If we try to drag a road directly across we will end up with a ford!Let’s blow up those road tiles – BLAMMO!One important thing we need when building a bridge is to have either side at exactly the same height. One way to achieve this is to place a series of single road tiles across the gap.Demolish the road tiles.We now have a perfectly level site to build our bridge.Now let’s put the cutting back for the steam bed using single road tiles. A level bed is needed to make streams and rivers – but that is another tutorial.You know it – Blammo!We now have a level stream bed and banks either side that are the same height. However we still can’t drag our bridge over just yet!What we are going to need is a very small shallow depression right in the middle under the bridge. Open up the menu and find the mayor mode valley tool.Whoa! Too big! Too big! We don’t want to dig to China or where ever it is you end up when you dig right through the earth… In New Zealand we end up in Spain, but I digress!Set the mayor mode valley tool to its smallest size – Shift-1. Make one click and one only – in the northwest corner of our target grid square. How do you know which is the northwest? Put the menu on and check the compass in the top left of your screen. Northwest is the top left of the grid square.Move the cursor down to the next door grid square and make one click.Now move one across to the next grid square. One click!Now move one grid square up. One click!What we should now have is a very shallow depression right in the middle of where the bridge will cross.To make sure the depression is absolutely flat and even use a single road tile – then you know it… Now comes the secret to make this whole thing work! Extra Terrain Tools … or sometimes known as the “rain tool” or “rain mod” or … well just call it what ya want ok? Oh.. and how do you get the Mayor and God mode tools to show on your menu together like that? You need this – God Terraforming in Mayor Mode – thank you, your welcome.Select God mode level terrain and then select the rain tool. At this point I recommend you save your tile. Ctrl-S.Whoa! Too big – you can flood your whole tile if you are not careful. If you do accidentally flood your tile, just press F8 and exit without saving, then reload your tile.Recommended size on Zoom 5 is Shift-4. Place the rain tool directly over the indentation you have just made.One click only please!You will now have just a little bit of water in the hollow – but that is all you need!Now that we have water, we can fool the game engine into letting us drag a bridge. What? Its not working? Oh. For some reason the game does not like you dragging onto single road tiles.Ahem.Yay! What? You want a different one – oh okay!Ooh -covered bridge eh?Yay! We now have our bridge built and ready to connect back to our road network.Yay! …but what about that water under the bridge?Save and exit to region.Reload the tile. The water is now gone and the stream is ready to terrain detail.
Screw Pile Developments 