How to Make a Landbridge (Tutorial)
I have an area on the upper side of my tile that does not have road access, and is bordered by rivers on both sides. To gain road access to this area I need to build a land bridge. To build a land bridge above sea level in SC requires a little bit of cunning, and thing called Extra Terrain Tools:
https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=21531
...and the ability to say Beetle Juice three times really fast. Once you know the trick, it is pretty straight forward, and you can pretty much put a bridge anywhere you want to.
Original credit for this tutorial must go to Dedgren and his Three Rivers Region CJ. This is simply my version of his tutorial.
1. Anyway, enough of my yabbering - on with the bridge building!
2. Selcect a place to build a bridge. As you can see trying to drag a road straight over the river would make a ford...
3. To work out where the bridge is going to end up on the other side mark it with a couple of single road tiles. The road tiles are useful for lowering the bank on the other side. This is one time when the grid is useful.
4. Place a road tile in the river bed, over the grid square where the bridge will cross.
5. Now get out your terraforming tools - as you can see I have that useful mod that brings up both Mayor and God mode tools in side by side menus.
https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=20092
If you don't have this little gizmo, then hold down Shift-Ctrl-Alt and click the God mode icon to get all the God mode tools back.
6. However I don't want to go crazy with the power, so the Mayor mode valley tool will work just fine here. Even the default size is a little big...
7. ... so I hold down ctrl and make the tool radius a little smaller.
8. The idea is to make a slightly lower indent in the riverbed, without drilling all the way to Spain... (that is directly opposite New Zealand BTW...) About 12 clicks... you know - it's kind of a wet your finger and stick it in the air kind of thing...
9. Now comes the secret to this whole sordid affair... the Extra Terrain Tools;
... or sometimes known as the "rain tool" or "rain mod" or ... well just call it what ya want ok?
https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=21531
10. Get yourself a sensible sized tool radius and "let it rain"... if you get carried away and flood your whole tile... yeah I've done it... just save and exit and reload the game... the rain mod water is a one time offer only. What this does is fool the game into thinking that there is water there... and where there is water you can build a bridge... well in theory anyway...
11. Hmm... What is supposed to happen, is when I drag my road over the rain mod water, it should let me build a bridge... something is not quite right...
12. I mean it looks OK...
13. Let's try again... yup the rain mod water is definately in the right place...
14. D' Arvit! Houston - we have a problem.
15. OK - this is the problem... the bank on the other side is too high... more road tiles to lower the terrain...
16. A little snibble with the Mayor valley tool... gently now... easy... steady as she goes...
17. Yay! - but I am not quite satisfied yet... one side is still a little high... yes, yes, I am being picky .
18. A little more careful clicking with the valley tool, and... Yes! much nicer! (BTW, you do need to demolish your single road tiles... for some reason the game will not let you drag a bridge over them...)
19. Now the most complicated part of the whole deal... picking which bridge you want... I actually like the stone arch, but it just did not look right here... so...
20. Now all we need to do is finish the road, replop the water and rocks under the bridge...
21. Sprinkle a few trees and fairy dust around...
22. ...and there we have it. One bridge to... well at the moment nowhere... but I am sure I can think of something to build on the other side of the river!
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