Landbridges - unblockable but sailable

[gracul]

Greetings!

As many of you know, the "arrow-style" bridges pose a big threat to the AI - the player can simply block them using any kind of a ship available.
In this tutorial i shall explain to you how to create landbridges that are unblockable but sailable.

First, let's see some examples so you can clearly understand me:

1) Normal

2) Merchants path visible

3) Ships path visible

On the first picture, you see the Constantinople crossing. It seems like we don't have a landbridge there, which would be a bad thing especially for the Turk AI (in the vanilla, we had a green arrow crossing over there).
On the second picture, you can see the merchants possible path, as you can see he can cross the water!
On the third picture, we see the ships path. The paths of the merchant and of the ship do not collide with each other, which means that none of them can move to the same place and block the other! Great!

In order to make such bridges, we need to understand how the map actually works. Now i won't explain in detail, but you will have to have Geomod, or the odd-pixel map to proceed further.
The paths on the MTW2 map are created between two important pixels even if they are placed diagonally. (An important pixel is the one that will create a forest if you put it green inside the map_ground_types.)
That allows us to create both a sea-path and a land-path through the non-important pixels.
This is how it looks in Geomod:

The paths are created between the yellow and the pink squares, effectively creating an unblockable but sailable landbridge.

IMPORTANT: If you wish to give the passages an 'all water' effect, you have to be familiar with the tutorial: "How to Make a Smooth Coast", by SigniferOne.

Another example, the Iberian peninsula crossing:


Fin!

[SigniferOne]

Well done.

[wilddog]

IMPORTANT: If you wish to give the passages an 'all water' effect, you have to be familiar with the tutorial: "How to Make a Smooth Coast", by SigniferOne.

Never read it but Alpaca gave quite lot of understanding to that. It was always pretty straight forward though

[Gigantus]

Isn't that the way they made land bridges in RTW?

[irishron]

Isn't that the way they made land bridges in RTW?

Close.

[Deteriorate]

The images in the tutorial are not visible to me, and I do not quite understand the concept without them.. is anyone able to explain further? I know how to make the green arrow type land-bridge but I would like to learn how to make these type as well

[Vipman]

If you have Stainless Steel you can load it with Geomod and look yourself at the Constantinople and Iberian peninsula crossings.

But to show how, you press the buttons encircled in red (no idea how they're called) and in ground types and heights maps you will see big squares that correspond to those in map_regions, the pixel in the middle of the big squares is what determines it's ground type / whether it's land or water. Change these pixels in ground types and heights so that ships will sail along the blue line and armies along the purple line

[Deteriorate]

Thank-you!!

[Gigantus]

Those two grid buttons create a raster corresponding with the pixels of the small graphics (eg map_regions) and the big ones (eg map_ground_types).

[King of Westeros]

I am currently helping with a mod called Dragon age: Total war and i need to know how to make a river crossing, the pictures don't show up for me so could somebody explain (as simple as possible) how to make one? thanks for the help.

[Gigantus]

That is done by modifying the map_features graphic - replace a dark blue river pixel with a turquoise one.

[Melooo182]

I have a question about green line land bridges, do they have to be a straight line? or can i make diagonals too?

[Gigantus]

No diagonal lines.

[Melooo182]

Ok thanks

[danny X]

I wonder if anyone ever tested this to see if it kills sea trade routes?

Roads don't go diagonally, so I don't see why sea trade would either

[Gigantus]

Roads require actual models\graphics to be placed according to a preset rule (no diagonal connection) - trade routes are simple dotted lines connecting two points. So I would say it won't hamper trade routes. Thing is - land trade takes place even if roads are build but not present.

[Martinskyboy]

Ok here the big questions. How does it affect trade by land? Does it make a difference with the passage from feature.map or it better to do that way? Or it just to get rid of the green arrow and counter the blockage by boat?
And it it possible to make a bridge for boats to sail under and to make a road going trought the bridge without put the water as river in feature.map?

[Gigantus]

Land trade will only happen via actual land connections (the display of the road levels is not required) - the feature land bridge does not enable trade with a region on the other side. It' stands to reason that a regular land bridge will enable trade as long as there is a diagonal connection between land pixels (map_heights).

[Martinskyboy]

Ok thank alot. And to make a bridge over it like on this picture it only a strat map model, no road actually can pass trough the landbridge I suppose from what I read, or it have a way to make it?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Gigantus]

Great Mod! But no, unless you create a straight land connection at that point no road connection will happen. You might however be able to hide a features land bridge under it to enable movement of land units.