Campaign Mode vs. Sandbox?

I've had GalCiv II TOA for quite some time now but have only ever played in sandbox mode. Given that I have a fairly limited amount of time to play video games (unfortunately!) I wanted to know if my time would be better spent continuing with sandbox mode or if I should definitely checkout the campaigns? Do the campaigns offer a unique and rewarding experience that would make them worth my time? Any feedback on the campaign mode would be greatly appreciated.

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

Well, they give you the backstory on all these civs.

Personally, I just do sandbox, because I suck at the campaign.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I've never done any of the campaigns. I spend all of my time in GalCivII designing ships and playing in sandbox mode; personally, I consider sandbox mode to be the game's "primary" mode.

I assume that the campaign offers backstory and a narrative series of events, with gameplay parameters limited to what fits the story at hand. If that sounds appealing to you, you should probably try.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Ryat

Join Date 06/2006

+429

I did enjoy the campaigns my self, they are well written and usually fun (there are some that can get a little hard). The second one campaign is neat because you come from the point of view of the Dengri, but overall they do offer an interesting backstory about how some of the races did come about.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I would agree, in terms of storyline and explaining a bit why each race has such and such characteristic, they are interesting.

But purely in terms of gameplay I prefer sandbox games as you have much more freedom as well as access to the full tech tree. I always feel a bit constrained by the limitations of the campaigns.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Thanks a lot for all the input. I didn't realize the campaign mode explained the back stories of all the races. That definitely intrigues me.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Well, if you just want the backstory quick 'n' dirty, you can go to GalCivII -> Data -> English -> Campaign and use an XML application to read it.

You can also use an XML editor to correct most errors in the game text, if you're a grammar Nazi like myself and care about such things.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I just use Notepad, but an XML editor does all the nice color coding for you and can render/error check. I never got into the campaigns much, but I've picked up a lot of the backstory through reading text here and there. To be honest, it doesn't interest me all that much. I've always gotten plenty of enjoyment out of sandbox mode. And yea, there's *a lot* of spelling and grammer errors. It's kind of understandable though. There's a whole book worth of text in this game and I doubt Stardock has any professional technical writers, well they probably do, but none of them ever looked at this game.

Successfully updated karma reason!