Anno 1800 can quickly turn into an obsessional rabbit hole of city-building and production streamlining. But to get to that point in the game, you’re going to have to either ride with training wheels or go through a baptism of fire, in other words, should you pick Anno 1800 Campaign or Sandbox mode? The answer can be less obvious than you imagine thanks to certain in-game mechanics. So let’s answer that conundrum.
Campaign or Sandbox Mode?
These two have their major differences but how you approach your choice will differ depending on whether you’re a series veteran or just a newbie. Surprisingly for newbies, you can’t go wrong with either Campaign or Sandbox mode provided the latter choice has some customizations tailored to look like tutorials (we’ll explain later).
Meanwhile, series veterans can just blitz through the Sandbox mode, especially those who have played Anno 1701 or Anno 1404. Anno 1800 follows a similar playstyle to those two aforementioned games, but with added quality-of-life improvements.
Differences Between the Two Modes
No matter which mode you pick, you’re going to be spending dozens of hours in them. Hence, you’re going to want a closer look at what each mode offers to help you decide better. Here’s a list of the key differences:
Campaign Mode
- Has an overarching story about politics and aristocratic drama.
- Slow pacing and story-locked mechanics.
- You can get attached to some of the characters.
- Provides a clear goal for your city building and development.
- Mandatory enemy A.I.
- You can still fail and go bankrupt in this mode.
- Offers less game mechanics customization.
- Portrait rewards.
Sandbox Mode
- Little to no story.
- All game mechanics are available to you right from the start.
- Optional enemy A.I., you can even disable enemies if you want to focus on building.
- Most of the game’s aspects are customizable.
- More personalized gameplay.
The optional and customizable presence of A.I. players is what makes Sandbox Mode also friendly for newbies. If you want a less anxious way to learn the ropes by yourself, you can just play a Sandbox Mode game in Anno 1800 on the easiest difficulty, largest map size, most abundant resources, and again zero A.I. players.
Because A.I. players will try to race you, wage war against you, and even steal islands from you. A Sandbox Mode game with no A.I. enemies can be more relaxed compared to the objective-filled and quota-driven questlines of the Campaign Mode. Besides, Sandbox Mode will still allow you to play the expansion questlines anyway.
The only thing you’ll be missing out on is the rather interesting Campaign Mode story about inheritance and business wars and a few basic tutorials that are safe to skip unless you’re new to city-building or strategy games.
