Border Pioneer Tips and Tricks
Each entry below is one mechanic, what it costs you, and the patch it was last checked against. Filter by category or difficulty to narrow the list, and use the anchor beside any heading to link straight to a single tip.
Bosses
#Killing the Mushmother starts the fight rather than ending it
She splits into giant mushrooms on death, so the burst that finished her leaves you with nothing for what comes out. Hold damage in reserve rather than spending everything on the main body. She waits at stage 4-3, where the cold biome begins.
Verified on v1.1.43
#The Orc Hero summons, and Charge belongs to somebody else
Charge is an Orc Cavalry ability, and the Cavalry is an ordinary enemy unit rather than the boss. Do not plan your walls around a boss ability that does not exist. What the Hero actually does is summon orcs, and the developers have cut how many he brings.
Verified on v1.1.43
#Stop buying Development cards once a boss is one turn out
Cycle the caravan for high-impact Battle cards instead, meaning upgraded single-target towers and heavy traps. Hold your powerful event cards for the fight rather than playing them the moment they arrive, since there is no way to draw them back later.
Verified on v1.1.43
Patches
#A single Demon fireball can no longer wipe a clustered defense
The splash damage was removed, so tight formations stopped being the liability they used to be. The same patch fixed Ghost and Frost Ghost spawn points that were granting unintended pathing speed, and added Afforestation to every Natural Faction Development Pack.
Verified on v1.1.43
Towers
#The bomb is not a hidden mine and needs no manual detonation
Enemies can see it and attack it, ranged ones included. A rework took away its chain explosions and compensated with much higher health and defense, so it now plays as something that blocks a lane and happens to explode rather than as a trap you spring.
Verified on v1.1.43
Towers
#Nobody agrees where a tent goes, and that is the honest answer
A tent has a 1.5 radius, heals up to five soldiers, and costs two workers. Place it near the fighting and area damage destroys it, place it far away and wounded units spend the fight walking. Treat it as a judgment call about where damage is actually landing.
Verified on v1.1.43
Buildings
#A Logging Camp surrounded by trees produces three times as much
It yields a flat 2 wood per turn plus 1 more for every adjacent tree tile, so four neighbours takes it to 7 wood a turn for the same 10 food and 2 population it always costs. Where you drop it matters more than how many you build.
Verified on v1.1.43
#Farmland cards placed beside each other pay a bonus yield
That makes scattering farms across the map the expensive way to feed a settlement. Build one dedicated agricultural sector well away from the front lines, where the tiles can touch each other and nothing is going to walk through it.
Verified on v1.1.43
Workshop
#The level editor is included, and wave pacing is the hard part
It shipped with the game and got a substantial upgrade during the 1.1.x series. Start by modifying a layout you have already played rather than building from scratch, because adjusting a wave curve you know the feel of teaches it far faster than authoring one.
Verified on v1.1.43
Deck Building
#The caravan is your answer to a deck that will not cooperate
It arrives every two to four turns, buys and sells resources, and carries a rotating selection of special cards. That means you can simply purchase something like a Purification Tower rather than hoping the next Battle pack finally drops one.
Verified on v1.1.43
#Card upgrades are paid for in population, not resources
They apply flat additive boosts rather than multipliers, so the documented Mine upgrade adds 2 production plus 2 more per stone while charging 2 population. Some cards upgrade through accumulated experience instead of a payment at all.
Verified on v1.1.43
#A reroll is paid for in food, which is why it can bankrupt you
Skip it entirely while your food production is negative or barely positive, because the card you fish for costs you the turns you needed to eat. Save rerolls for a defensive card you actually need before a specific wave arrives.
Verified on v1.1.43
Patches
#Conscript Militias no longer consume your available population
That changed in a patch, so older build orders budget for a cost the card does not charge any more. The same pass reduced Orc Cavalry sustained attack while buffing the first hit of its Charge, which moves where their damage actually lands.
Verified on v1.1.43
Achievements
#Gig Worker is not bugged, it just wants a temporary unit
It needs something summoned rather than recruited, such as fairies called up for 40 food, deployed on a story deployment quest. Permanent conscripts and unit-spawning buildings never count toward it however many you send, which is why it reads as broken.
Verified on v1.1.43
Deck Building
#Early Battle Packs collapse your economy rather than defending it
They glut your hand with expensive, high-upkeep units that drain food and population until the whole settlement fails systemically. Use the free guards you already have for early combat quests and draft Development Packs instead.
Verified on v1.1.43
Meta
#Abandoning a run early forfeits progression rather than farming it
Viceroy XP is gated behind completing missions, not time played or waves survived, so a short aborted run gives up exactly the account progress it was supposed to be grinding. Any advice about resetting quickly assumes a mechanic this game does not have.
Verified on v1.1.43
Deck Building
#Your hand limit is 12 cards, raised from a tighter cap
Patch v0.99.16 lifted it on 17 February and added a discard warning to the interface at the same time. Older advice about ruthlessly pruning your hand was written against the smaller limit and costs you options you can now simply hold.
Verified on v1.1.43
Saves
#There are no save backups, so a force-quit can cost you the run
A network interruption does the same thing, and the save loss on macOS is real and acknowledged by the developer, who traces it to macOS permission changes rather than a patch. Back up your save directory by hand, and check the test branch for the macOS-arm build.
Verified on v1.1.43
Economy
#The circulating efficiency numbers are from before the 1.1 series
They trace to a community balance breakdown written during v0.99.x shortly after release, and the developers have enhanced both the Mill and the Orchard since. The underlying lesson holds, since cheap clustered buildings still beat expensive ones per worker.
Verified on v1.1.43
Workshop
#The Steam Workshop for this game takes maps and nothing else
Guides recommending combat log overlays or configuration frameworks are describing content that cannot exist here, because there is no category for it to be uploaded under. If a mod is not a map, it is not on the Workshop.
Verified on v1.1.43
What to Read Next
- Deck Building and Cards. Packs, the caravan, upgrades, and what to draft when.
- City Building and Resources. Adjacency yields and the buildings worth clustering.
- Tower Defense Strategies. Towers, tents, and the bomb that is not a mine.
- Boss Encounters. Every boss, what it really does, and how to prepare a turn out.
- Meta-Progression and Endless. Viceroy XP, and why finishing missions is the only way up.
- Economic Efficiency. Yield per worker, and which figures have aged out.
- Steam Workshop and Custom Maps. What the Workshop accepts and the level editor.
- Getting Started. Rerolls, opening defenses, and backing up your save.
- Patch History and Meta. What each patch moved and when.
- Achievements. The full list, including the one that only looks bugged.