A blend of city builder, deck builder, and tower defence, with simplified micro and macro gameplay - Border Pioneers is a refreshing addition to the Indie scene.


🟩 Pros:

+ Speed settings
+ Building synergies
+ Easy to understand UI
+ Basic meta-progression
+ Tutorial delivered as you play
+ Different characters offer unique perks
+ Well-balanced battle, production, and spell packs (defensive, offensive, and production cards)
+ King’s quests provide additional choices during gameplay (rewarding currency and food each turn based on affinity level)

🟥 Cons:

- The music doesn’t match the setting
- Some fights feature an unexpected difficulty spike

🏷️ Suggestions:

~ Control groups
~ Steam Deck support
~ Hold position command for units


The core loop of Border Pioneers is simple – Build your city, gather resources each turn based on your structures, and defend against monthly enemy waves using towers, units, spells, traps, and walls. Card packs, the Caravan (trader), and quest rewards make this possible. Everything comes together to deliver an enjoyable experience!

As a city builder – Buildings produce food, tools, and workers, each with unique synergies, creating a strategic resource balancing act. Workers are used for buildings and units, food feeds them while tools upgrade your town hall. Upgrading your town hall unlocks upgrades for your other buildings – Simple!

As a deck builder – You’ve a 10-card hand limit, and receive battle, production, and spell packs every month. The caravan, chests, and quests also provide additional cards and packs. This creates another fun balancing act between resources, production, offensive and defensive cards.

As a tower defence – Defend against progressively harder enemy waves each month. Succeed, and you’ll receive a chest with additional reward, such as buffs or cards (some are instant, others are permanent). Both towers and units earn experience and can be upgraded.

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10/10 Best tower defense I have ever played. Complete freedom to build your own city and defenses. Well balanced and loads of playstyles.

Great base building, tower defence hybrid.
Gets much better the more you play as everything begins to unlock and bigger maps come into play.