I’ve played the original with a couple mods a few years back and had much fun. Thought about starting again and wondered if I need the DLC nowadays.
Unless you need the new dlc mechanics I’d say you’re fine! And I would say most mods don’t require dlcs either.
No, the DLCs are not necessary. I held out for a long time, finally bought it a few months ago. Even though I think it’s worth it because of how much the game changed with the DLCs, I would have been happily playing for hundreds of hours without them. All mods I used work with and without the DLCs.
I recommend playing the base game and getting back into the swing of things, then get the DLC that interests you most once you’re hooked again. The DLC add a lot of content and can dramatically expand your play styles and experiences. There are tons of mods that can do the same for free too, and most don’t require any of the dlc. My personal favourite DLC is biotech!
Note: I have played a heavily modded game with both Royalty and Ideology, not Biotech though.
None of the DLCs are strictly necessary, but I would highly recommend Ideology - the core mechanics it adds are compelling and impactful, and it serves as a nice base for a huge amount of mods to build off it. Royalty isn’t bad either, but it seems more disconnected from the rest of the game than Ideology is.
Nah, the DLCs are great, but the base game is great too. Chess is good, but wizard’s chess is also good.
