The new civs were really focused on being unique and quirky. And you'll probably want to turn off diplomatic victory since you can walk into it almost by accident. If you're behind, it just messes up your tiles and effectively prevents you from fielding a modern military which is all fossil-fuel dependent. The climate change mechanic is annoying as well. The World Congress is honestly an annoying mechanic, since it rarely offers you strategic choices you actually care about and voting is difficult to predict or control. The Gathering Storm expansion adds random natural disasters which are really fun and it fleshes out the end-game tech tree. I hate playing against them because they're the only civ in the game that penalizes you for playing well. The only major downside to this one for me is Mapuche. And I'm half Dutch, and this DLC adds them to the game. The casus belli also makes warmongering less punishing. The Rise and Fall expansion adds some key mechanics with dark/golden ages, loyalty, governors, and alliance types.

If you're enjoying yourself and enjoy the turn-based strategy, you'll want the DLC. If you're new to the series and just want to try it out, get the original on sale and give it a go. Yes, the original is playable as a stand alone. This is all my own opinion of course, but I think the game is really incomplete without most if not all of the DLC.

the world congress in this game is annoying as all ♥♥♥♥, I dunno why cos Civ V also had a congress but I don't remember if it pulled your arm and forced you into the congress screen with no way to close it until you vote on everything there. say goodbye to modern units that use resources like coal and oil or else risk losing chunks after chunks of territory to rising sea levels because somehow that one infantry you have (human infantry, not mechanized) is SOMEHOW consuming too much oil and contributing 50% to global warming and now everyone is denoucing you.Īlso. Rise and Fall adds a loyalty system that virtually castrates you from being aggressive with your expansion, I've played with this for a long time before I finally had it and just installed a mod to remove this stupic mechanic, it's just designed to punish you (and the AI on RARE occasions) if you get a little too creative. The same can't be said about the two bigger DLCs, Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm, they add mechanics that are fine but each of them have ONE major downside that basically make it so they're not worth getting. The smaller DLCs also add a few gimmicks that can be fun to play with. The base game is fine, it's Civ as it is meant to be.

Civ 5 ww2 mod without dlcs