Combolands Two-Guild Combos From Seven Guilds

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Core goal: Every run you pick exactly two guilds. Players are mostly stuck on which pair actually multiplies instead of fighting over the same tiles, and how to play that pair's scoring engine so the city hits the next population milestone before weeks run out. The seven standard guilds are Agricultural, Frontier, Martial, Civic, Commercial, Maritime, and Industrial.

1What Each Guild Actually Scores Off

Guild	Scoring identity
Frontier	Rerolls. Shaman-type buildings fire when something in range gains a reroll.
Martial	Removes. Guard towers fire when something in range is removed; banners fire when they are removed.
Agricultural	Crops and farms. Sunflower fields care about crops; scarecrows care about farms. Lower-tier unless you mass sunflowers or get strong heirlooms.
Civic	Growing plots. Finished plots stop scoring. Tax Collector resets them.
Commercial	Stalls that Marketplace restarts, plus gold generation for the shop.
Maritime	Shore and ocean only. Fishing boats and things that buff or count boats. Frequently cited as a top guild.
Industrial	Production chain: Mine next to rock, then mineral, then Smelter consumes it.

2Pick a Pair by Trigger Type, Not by Vibe

Do this before you look at the map. Ask two questions: Do these guilds need the same terrain? Do they score on the same action (place, wait, remove, reroll)?

Pairing rule: Pair a placement/engine guild with a trigger guild. Or pair two engines that use different tiles.

High-signal pairs people actually play:

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Frontier + Agricultural: early, simple, demo-familiar. Frontier wants forests and hunters; Ag wants fields. Different tiles. Rerolls from Frontier feed tempo while farms stack.
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Frontier + Maritime: land engine plus water engine. Maritime eats coastline; Frontier eats interior. One of the most common first full-game pairs.
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Agricultural + Industrial: farms vs mines and rocks. Don't overlap. Industrial chain gives mid-run spikes; Ag gives steady crop ticks.
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Martial + Civic: Martial wants removes; Civic needs plot resets (Tax Collector). Same verb, different buildings. Place Civic plots, then use Martial remove-payoffs when you reset or clear.
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Commercial + anything gold-hungry: Commercial prints shop coins. Pair it with a guild whose heirlooms and blueprints you must buy.
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Maritime + Industrial: coast vs rock. Two dense engines that rarely steal tiles. Maritime is the pair people lean on when they want a run that can actually explode.

Avoid unless you know why:

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Maritime + Agricultural on a map with almost no inland farm space and little coast. Both need room to breathe.
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Industrial + Martial if you keep removing the mines and smelters that are your chain.
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Two remove-or-reset guilds without a plan for what you delete (Martial + Civic is the exception because Civic wants resets).

3Read the Island Before You Commit

1
Lots of coast or shallows
Lean Maritime buildings first week. Boats only live there.
2
Lots of rock
Industrial mines go adjacent to rock immediately. That is the whole guild.
3
Lots of forest
Frontier woodcutters, hunting lodges, shaman range.
4
Open dirt or growable plots
Civic or Agricultural, not boats.

If the map starves one of your two guilds, spend early gold on rerolls and dismiss so that guild's dead cards leave the hand. Shop dismiss cost was lowered (5 to 3) because this is a real problem.

4Play the Pair in Order (First 4-6 Weeks)

1
Place the tile-locked guild first.
Maritime on water, Industrial on rock, Ag on growable dirt. If you wait, those tiles get eaten by neutrals.
2
Put the trigger guild's range piece second.
Shaman (Frontier) and Guard Tower (Martial) only matter if something that can reroll or remove will sit in their orange range later.
3
Do not chase every adjacency.
Early weeks: hit the milestone early for bonus points and extra shop options. Early completion is the real economy.
4
One engine, one multiplier.
Stack fishing boats, then take the Maritime tome or range-extender (crane, pontoon). Don't split into half-boats half-farms unless both tiles are abundant.

Agricultural-specific: commit to sunflower and crop density or a strong heirloom. Spreading one farm and one hunter does not pay. Ag sits lower in guild tier and needs sunflower mass-production or item babysitting.

Civic-specific: grow plots, then Tax Collector before they finish and go dead. A completed plot that never resets is a wasted tile.

Industrial-specific: Mine, then mineral sitting on the tile, then Smelter in range that consumes. If you place three mines and no smelter, the chain never scores.

Commercial-specific: Marketplace exists to re-trigger stalls. Place stalls where Marketplace range covers several at once, then buy shop density with the gold those stalls print.

5Shop and Heirloom Decisions

1
Buy the tome or mult that matches the guild with 3+ buildings on the board.
Not the guild you "might" pivot to.
2
Heirlooms that ignore range are pair-winners.
"Next X buildings of [guild] ignore range" lets Frontier or Ag dump into a tight cluster. Grab these on sight.
3
Potions that place anywhere or force rare+ rolls
For the starved guild on a bad map, not for greed.
4
Don't spend the shop emptying both guilds' card pools.
Dismiss the guild the island cannot support.

6Key Decision Points

Question	Answer
Which guild do I feed this placement?	Feed the one whose next building uses a unique tile or triggers the other guild's already-placed range piece.
Do I remove this building?	Yes if you are Martial (or Civic reset). No if it is an Industrial mine/smelter or a Maritime boat that other cards count.
Do I reroll the offered cards?	Yes if neither card belongs to a guild that still has legal tiles. Frontier likes rerolls as a scoring event, reroll near a Shaman.
Is this pair dead?	If by week 4 you have no legal tile for one guild and no dismiss or reroll left, the run is playing as a one-guild city. Pivot: treat the starved guild as shop-only and win on the other.

7Practical Default Pairs to Run Today

1
Frontier + Maritime - interior plus coast, two engines, high player rating on Maritime.
2
Frontier + Agricultural - safest learning pair, different tiles.
3
Commercial + Maritime - gold for boat tomes plus water engine.
4
Industrial + Agricultural - rock chain plus farm ticks.
5
Martial + Civic - only if you will actually remove and reset on purpose.

Unlock order: most people go through Agricultural, Frontier, Martial first (highest win-achievement rates), then Commercial, Civic, Industrial, Maritime. Use the early three to learn range vs adjacent, then force a Maritime or Industrial pair once those guilds unlock.

8Common Mistakes

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Picking two guilds that both need the same rare terrain. Double-coast or double-rock maps are rare.
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Building Martial remove payoffs, then refusing to remove anything.
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Letting Civic plots complete and sit. Reset them with Tax Collector.
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Spreading Agricultural farms one-tile-apart instead of crop clusters (sunflower and scarecrow references).
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Starting Industrial with mines that have no smelter path.
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Ignoring that Maritime buildings often cannot go inland. Saving "the good coast tile" for a later neutral is how Maritime runs die.
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Chasing 21-combo completion on high rank before you have a default pair you can execute in 30 minutes. Guild Journeyman (all 21 pairs once) is 0.2% for a reason.