How to Remove Island Borders in Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder

You have carefully drafted your deck, picked the perfect two guilds out of the 21 possible combinations, and your synergies are absolutely popping off. You are chasing that dopamine-fueled “number-go-up” rush, placing buildings to trigger massive cascading combos. But just as you are about to drop your ultimate blueprint to seal the run, you hit a brick wall: the edge of the map. In a game where spatial optimization is everything, running out of room on your procedurally generated island is the most frustrating way to fail your weekly milestones.

If you are struggling with claustrophobic maps and want to know how to expand your playable area, you are in the right place. Let’s break down exactly how to remove island borders in Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder.

TL;DR: The Short Answer

If you are in the middle of a run and desperately need more grid space, here is how you can remove or push back the island borders in Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder:

• Use Map Manipulation Potions: Visit the in-game shop and purchase specific potions designed to manipulate the map, which can spawn new land tiles or convert water/void tiles into buildable space.
• Achieve Milestone Goals: Successfully hitting your required score within the given “X weeks” timeframe allows you to select progression perks. Map expansion is heavily tied to completing these phase milestones.
• Draft Shoreline Buildings: Certain guilds offer specific blueprints that can be placed on the border or water tiles, effectively extending your playable grid outward.
• Equip Spatial Heirlooms: Before or during a run, acquire specific passive heirlooms (out of the 100+ available) that increase your starting island size or automatically expand borders upon triggering certain combos.
• Leverage City Councillors: Recruit specific councillors from the 13+ available roster whose unique progression abilities allow for border manipulation.

The Mechanics of Procedural Islands and Borders

To understand how to remove borders, you first need to understand why they exist. Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder is a hybrid of a deckbuilder and a turn-based strategy city builder, heavily inspired by spatial puzzle games like Islanders and Dorfromantik.

When you start a new run, the procedural generation algorithm creates a tiny hamlet surrounded by hard borders—usually represented by water, cliffs, or a grid drop-off. Space in this game is a premium resource. The developer, Crux Games (featuring the lead designer of Terra Nil), intentionally designed the game to be broken through synergies. The borders serve as the primary friction point. You are meant to feel constrained so that when you finally figure out how to smash synergies together and expand the map, the resulting chain reactions feel outrageously satisfying. You cannot simply toggle borders off in the settings; you must earn your expansions through gameplay mechanics.

Method 1: Utilizing Map Manipulation Potions

The most direct and immediate way to remove island borders in Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder is through the game’s potion system. As you build your town and trigger combos, you generate currency that can be spent in the shop.

The shop contains blueprints, heirlooms, and critically, Potions to manipulate the map.

When you are nearing the edge of your island, you need to prioritize rolling for Map Manipulation Potions. These consumable items can be dragged and dropped directly onto the unbuildable border tiles. Depending on the specific potion, it will either raise land from the water, fill in chasms, or push the procedural border outward by a set number of tiles.

Pro Tip: Do not waste map potions in the early game. Save your currency and hold onto these potions until you are setting up a massive end-game synergy that requires a very specific shape of land that your current island does not provide.

Method 2: Milestone Perks and Map Expansions

Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder operates on a strict timer. You are tasked to reach certain score milestones within a given timeframe (X number of weeks). If you fail to meet your goals, it is an instant game over.

However, completing your Milestone Goals rewards you with powerful perks that allow you to progress to the next phase of the run. One of the most critical perks you will be offered is procedural map expansion. When selected, the game will automatically generate a new chunk of land attached to your existing island, completely removing the previous border and opening up fresh terrain.

To ensure you always have the option to expand, you need to hit your milestones as efficiently as possible. If you are struggling to pull the high-scoring buildings needed to hit these milestones, you should review The Ultimate Combolands Fast Progression & Farming Guide: Break the System. to optimize your deckbuilding strategy. Getting the right cards ensures you hit your milestones early, giving you access to border-expanding perks before you run out of space.

Method 3: Guild Synergies and Border-Defying Blueprints

Every run in Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder requires you to pick 2 different guilds out of a pantheon of 7, resulting in 21 unique combinations. Each guild has its own identity, strengths, drawbacks, and a pool of the 120+ buildings in the game.

To combat restrictive borders, you should look for guilds that specialize in land reclamation or aquatic architecture. Just like “ShoreTiles” in similar games, certain blueprints are designed specifically to be placed on the border or outside of it.

For example, placing a specific Dock, Bridge, or Landfill building on the edge of your island will not only score points but will convert the adjacent unplayable tile into a playable one. By chaining these specific border-defying blueprints together, you can manually build your way out of the initial procedural boundary, creating a sprawling metropolis that defies the original map limits.

Method 4: Passive Heirlooms and City Councillors

Beyond active cards and potions, your meta-progression and passive loadout play a massive role in how you handle island borders in Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder.

Passive Heirlooms: The game features over 100 passive heirlooms that enhance your build. Some of these heirlooms directly interact with the map’s borders. You can find heirlooms that increase the starting size of your procedural island, meaning the borders are pushed further back from week one. Other heirlooms might trigger a mini-expansion every time you play a specific type of card or complete a specific combo chain.

City Councillors: You can recruit from 13+ city councillors, each with their own progression trees and unique abilities. Certain councillors specialize in map manipulation. Leveling up a councillor who focuses on exploration or terraforming will grant you passive abilities or active cooldown skills that can remove island borders, giving you the breathing room needed to survive the later, increasingly challenging ranks.

Warnings and Spatial Edge Cases

While expanding your island is crucial, there are a few edge cases and warnings you must keep in mind when removing borders in Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder:

• Combo Dilution: Expanding the map too rapidly without the card draw to support it can leave you with dead space. Some synergies require buildings to be tightly packed. If you remove a border and spread your buildings too thin, you might miss out on cascading adjacency bonuses.
• Procedural Hazards: When you use a milestone perk to expand the map, the newly generated land might contain procedural hazards or obstacles (like mountains or ruins) that block your intended build path. Always have a backup plan or a map manipulation potion ready to deal with bad RNG.
• The “Game Over” Trap: Do not spend all your gold on Map Manipulation Potions if it means you won’t have enough score-generating cards to hit your weekly milestone. Having a massive, borderless island means nothing if you fail the week’s score check.

The Ultimate Shortcut: Bypassing Borders with XMODhub

Let’s be honest: sometimes the RNG in roguelike deckbuilders is just brutal. You might get terrible guild drafts, no map potions in the shop, and a starting island that is completely unworkable. If you are tired of losing 30-minute runs because of restrictive borders and just want to experience the dopamine rush of building the ultimate broken city, there is a better way.

You can completely bypass the spatial limitations of Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder using XMODhub. With dedicated scripts for the game, you can ignore placement rules, instantly add map manipulation potions to your inventory, or freeze the milestone timer so you can build at your own pace.

Here is how to unlock infinite space in three simple steps:

1. Download and Install XMODhub: Get the most secure and lightweight modding engine available for PC gamers.
2. Auto-Detect Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder: Launch the game, and XMODhub will automatically detect your active session and load the specific cheat module.
3. Toggle Cheats: Use the overlay to activate “Infinite Map Potions,” “Ignore Placement Restrictions,” or “Freeze Week Timer.” Watch your island borders become completely irrelevant as you build the ultimate metropolis.

Download Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder Trainer Now

Best Guild Combinations for Early Map Expansion

If your primary goal is to remove island borders as quickly as possible during the early game, drafting the correct synergy is paramount. Out of the 21 possible combinations, pairing the Geomancer Guild with the Mariner Guild yields the highest map-expansion win rate.

The Geomancer Guild provides blueprints like the Tectonic Drill and Landfill, which actively convert unplayable void tiles into standard grid spaces when placed near edges. Meanwhile, the Mariner Guild excels at aquatic architecture, allowing you to drop Pier Networks and Deepwater Platforms directly onto the water borders. Stacking these two guilds allows you to expand outward into the water while simultaneously raising new landmasses, effectively doubling your buildable area by Week 4.

Map Manipulation Potion Tier List

Not all potions are created equal. When refreshing the shop, you need to know which Map Manipulation Potions are worth your hard-earned gold. Below is a definitive breakdown of the best potions to secure when trying to expand map Combolands grids.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Verdict: Mastering Space in Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder

Learning how to remove island borders in Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder is what separates beginners from players who can consistently conquer all 10 ranks. By smartly managing your shop currency to buy Map Manipulation Potions, drafting the right guild blueprints, and hitting your milestones efficiently to trigger map expansions, you can turn a tiny procedural hamlet into a massive engine of cascading combos. The game is designed to be broken, and pushing the boundaries of the map is your first step toward ultimate victory.

If the grind of procedural RNG becomes too tedious, remember that XMODhub is the ultimate equalizer. Supporting over 5,000 single-player PC titles, XMODhub allows you to tailor your gaming experience exactly how you want it. Whether you are playing Combolands: Roguelike Citybuilder, or similar relaxing yet deep spatial puzzle games like Islanders, Dorfromantik, or Kingdoms Reborn, XMODhub gives you the power to remove the frustration and focus entirely on the fun. Expand your borders, break the game, and build a city for the ages!