County of Fortune how to build a bridge: use the Bridges tool in the bottom toolbar, choose wood or stone, and build the bridge before you draw the roads. Drawing a road across the river first makes it reroute around the bridge and stay red.
County of Fortune how to build a bridge: choose the material
When you build a bridge you choose its material the same way you choose the kind of settlement you are founding: a wooden bridge or a stone bridge.
- Wooden bridges are limited to roughly ten units of span. Demo update 0.1.10 raised the maximum bridge length.
- Stone bridges are what you need to cross a wide river. Building a stone bridge over the main river early on is expensive.
The charter opened from the clover button in the top-right player screen reduces the cost of building roads and bridges, and is the practical way to afford one.
Build the bridge first, then the roads
- Pick the Bridges tool from the bottom toolbar, between Roads and Destroy Roads or Bridges.
- Choose wood or stone.
- Place the bridge across the water.
- Run the road from your settlement to the highlighted endpoint on your side of the bridge.
- From the other side of the bridge, run the road on to the target settlement.
The road ends have to land on the centre squares themselves, so building roads covers the connection rules that make the run land.
Upgrading and what it unlocks
Bridges can be upgraded later with the same "Upgrade road or bridge" tool used for roads. A stone road can be carried over the wider rivers to reach the far side, which is the answer to the common problem of a clay pit sitting downstream of your stone.
If you need to cross with heavy cargo rather than with people, the river itself is the trade route — raft ports cover how goods move downstream, and building roads covers the road side of a crossing.