Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict/Bridge

Bridges are special structures in Gaiaterra: Elysea's Conflict.

Overview
Bridges are vital for ground troops to cross from one land mass to another that is separated by water or low terrain. Most bridges have a Bridge Repair Hut found in both end of the bridge. These Bridge Repair Huts cannot be destroyed in any way. Low wooden and concrete bridges prevent surface naval units from passing through (while submerged units can still pass beneath it).

Bridges can be useful for clever players; since bridges are a natural chokepoint, this leaves troops vulnerable to area-of-effect general powers and to defending forces at the other side of a bridge while attempting to cross them.

Bridges can be used as high ground if it is placed over low terrain. Units in high ground gain a range bonus against enemies that are found below the bridge.

In some maps where an island has multiple bridges, a defending player may be encouraged to destroy all of them save for one. If done, all enemy forces attacking the player's base will be forced to cross the only bridge standing, essentially funneling them into one location. This action is more effective against A.I. opponents, since they will almost never send Engineers or Builders to repair the bridge.

Destruction of bridges may be detrimental to ground forces, but useful for naval forces. Some low bridges block the waterway for naval forces, so these can be destroyed to allow them passage.

It is impossible to build structures in bridges. Units cannot deploy into a structure on a bridge (like the Mobile Sensor Array, the Asmodia Specter Artillery and the Empire Nuclear Cannon), however units can deploy into other units on it. Also, reinforcement powers can only be deployed near the ends of bridges.

Bridge destruction
“The Aquilans just blewed up the bridge, we're cut off!”

—Voshkod Conscript during the 2004 Voshkod's failed invasion of Aquila

Bridges can be manually destroyed by units with explosive weaponry (such as anti-tank infantry and tanks), but this can take some time and only a section of the bridge is destroyed. However, it only takes a destroyed single section to render a bridge completely impassable by ground forces.

Because of this, one should take caution when building defenses with explosive weaponry near the bridge, as the bridge will tend to wear out, forcing the players to repair the bridge over and over again.

A more reliable method of destroying bridges is by training certain infantry to plant explosives inside the Bridge Repair Hut to blow up the bridge completely.

If any ground troops are crossing the bridge, all of them will be destroyed if the bridge collapses. Invulnerable and amphibious units will not survive as well. Naval units moving under the bridge are also sunk in the process.

Bridge Repair
The only way to repair a bridge is to order one Engineer or a builder unit (like the Aquilan Shredder ABV) to enter a Bridge Repair Hut. By doing so, the entire bridge will be repaired, no matter how many sections were destroyed. An EVA announcement will occur if a bridge is successfully repaired. If the bridge is destroyed again, an additional Engineer can be sent to the Bridge Repair Hut, and this can be done many times. However, not all bridges have a Bridge Repair Hut, rendering the bridge impassable to ground forces without amphibious traits, but beneficial to naval forces if they are low bridges like the image to the right.