Bridges are unconstructable structures in Age of Empires: Return of Rome, Age of Empires II, Age of Mythology, and Age of Empires IV. They function as decorative objects that allow units to cross water.
Age of Empires[]
Bridges are present since the release of Return of Rome game mode which brought over many Scenario Editor objects from Age of Empires II to Age of Empires. They are explained in the following Age of Empires II section.
Age of Empires II[]
Bridges provide land units passage over bodies of water and block ships. This is accomplished not by actually allowing units to cross, but by automatically placing unique Shallow tiles beneath the Bridge that allow land units to cross, but not ships unlike common Shallow tiles. This is why units cannot be directly placed on Bridges that are placed over water in the Scenario Editor.
Bridges can neither be attacked nor even selected, and are permanently on the map. As such, they may be considered as more like terrain elements in the vein of Mountains and Cliffs, than actual structures. However, Bridges can be owned by a player and provide with their LOS of 6, which is not affected by researching Town Watch and Town Patrol. Bridges never change ownership (not even Gaia ones) and can only be placed diagonally in the Scenario Editor.
Though bridges cannot be attacked and destroyed, there are ruined bridge sections in the Scenario Editor, which can be used for storytelling purposes (e.g. the player's units discovering that "the bridge is out" in the scenario An Unlikely Messiah, forcing them to head north and take the Transport Ships in a village). A ruined section can also replace an intact one through a scripted Trigger, making it appear that the bridge is destroyed during a game (e.g. Pax Mongolica).
As of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, there are four distinct bridge styles, each with N-S and W-E variants:
- A stone brick bridge with small arches introduced in The Age of Kings.
- A small wooden bridge introduced in The Forgotten. This bridge is only one tile thick instead of four like the others, and looks similar to the walking sections of the Dark Age Dock.
- An Asian-looking stone bridge with larger arches and small decorative pillars introduced in Rise of the Rajas.
- A new stone bridge intermediate between the other two, with large arches and lateral angular projections, introduced in the Definitive Edition.
With update 95810, new bridge pieces were added to Age of Empires II, but not the Age of Empires mode in Return of Rome. These pieces are 1x1 parts of bridges including middle parts, end parts, cracked parts, and railings, which can be joined in various manners to form bridges of desired widths and shapes. With update 125283, Bridges are displayed on the mini map with the same color as shallows terrain.
All Bridge parts internally have 1,000 hit points and 1,000 pierce armor, which is irrelevant in usage, as they cannot be targeted and are not damaged by area attacks.
Age of Mythology[]
| “ | It looks like a bridge, but isn't. | ” |
| —In-game description | ||
Bridges in Age of Mythology function as a Scenario Editor-only embellishment object, according to its animation files, it was intended to be built, but not placed. The Bridge was most likely a campaign object that was used as a plot-device, and had to be built in order to cross (most likely to attack Gargarensis's forces) an area of water. It takes the appearance of a large wooden bridge.
The Bridge is unfinished, as it is extremely oversized, lacks a shadow (before the Extended Edition), lacks a selection box, has no icon, and does not allow units to travel over it. It does have different graphics for different amounts of damage received.
Age of Empires III[]
A small, non-interactive (i.e. purely decorative) wooden bridge is introduced in Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties. It is shown in some animations of the Act I: Japan campaign.
Age of Empires IV[]
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