Useless DLC's?

[badboje]

I don't exactly want to spend 100 bucks on this game and its expansions, any expansions that are mostly pointless that I can skip out on?

[bri]

Mandate of Heavan, Mare Nostrum, and Res Publica are fairly niche as is Third Rome. El Dorado and Conquest of Paradise don't add much if you don't play in the new world.

[Brianlin321]

I would say Common Sense and Art of War are must haves. You don't know how useful the development button actually is for buying dpwn liberty desire and playing tall.

[NinjaPlease]

All of them. As someone with 100 pdox forum icons (when I finally snapped out of it), I can say there are maybe 3-5 worthwhile DLC, and I own all up to Mandate of Heaven. Pdox is doing cash grabs at this point with "immersion" packs (not just with EU4 either) at this point and have halted buying them.

Art of War and Common Sense as alluded to, I'd even say Rights of Man was wortwhile with it's mechanics for telling Subject nations not to do stupid things (get wiped out) during wars.

But otherwise save your money for other games with more content than the $10-15 DLC spam.

Also, just as a side note, if you want to get them acheivements for vanilla, do them right away. One of the DLC makes the westernization of steppe horde one near impossible to pull off outside of moving a capital to Italy, lol.

[Mr_MeGusta]

This is out of date and does not include 3rd Rome or Rule Britania.
Link to the Reddit page I got this from: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/5et9si/which_dlcs_should_i_get_a_help_for_people_new_to/
Tier 1 is HIGHLY recommended if you want to have fun playing the game,
Tier 2 adds depth to almost every nation in the game and has neat features for them
Tier 3 adds big features to most nations.
Tier 4 is nice-to-have
Tier 1:
Art of War (better handling of war with allies and subjects)
Common Sense (developing provinces, VERY important for starts outside Europe since the tech rework in 1.18)
Tier 2:
Cossacks (adds depth to diplomacy with trust and favours, Estates give free monarch points, half-price advisors, money, good generals, etc, makes hordes stronger)
Rights of Man (leader/ruler traits, great powers, Queen Regents allowing you to wage war during regencies, disinheriting is really awesome, "strenghten government" allows you to raise legitimacy/rep. tradition quickly)
Mandate of Heaven (actual Ages-mechanic (strong bonuses!), edicts help you make more of your states, Emperor-of-China-mechanics) tentative placing until more feedback
Tier 3:
Wealth of Nations (bonus merchants and improvements to trade)
El Dorado (Only if you like playing as either an American Nation like Aztec, Incas, a colonizer OR a custom nation OR a subject (PU/Vasall) if you dont own Conquest of Paradise)
Tier 4:
Mare Nostrum (adds Condottieri, changes to Trade-focused nations and some spy actions like stealing maps)
Conquest of Paradise (Random New World feature, helps with playing Native Americans and subjects can now get others to support their independence)
Res Publica (adds features for merchant republics and other unique government forms like the Dutch or Polish one)
El Dorado is kind of a special case, if you want to play a native American or a colonizer it is VERY important but if you dont there is no real reason to get it.
Edit: multiplayer
Only 1 player needs the dlcs for all players to be able to use them. Mare Nostrum has the feature to rent out your army which in multiplayer games can be huge!
edit2:
Because it keeps confusing people (myself included at first):
Content packs DO NOT add gameplay. They are cool and neat but generally just add new unit models or other graphics updates. Treat them as a way of tipping Paradox for creating this beautiful game. But do not buy them expecting them to be "real" expansions.
Packs like the Collectors/Extreme/... Edition of EU4 generally don't contain the core DLCs. They often have a few of the older DLCs plus a ton of unit packs and other graphics updates. Always check what they'll actually give you and if that's worth it for you.

[Mr_MeGusta]

If someone could add it their thoughts on why you would want to consider 3rd Rome and Rule Britiania, that would be helpful.

[tonypa]

Third Rome and Rule Britannia are great if you constantly want to play Russia or England. They offer little to other countries.

[SirTalkALot]

Art of War and Common Sense are by far the most important, with Rights of Man also being pretty good. Everything else you can buy over time you to play the game and learn what you might like or not like. Maybe you'll love playing the Russian region for example, in that case Third Rome would be nice.

[bri]

Originally posted by tonypa:

Third Rome and Rule Britannia are great if you constantly want to play Russia or England. They offer little to other countries.

Third Rome is good for Orthodox nations, not just Russia. Rule Britannia is much more limited with really only adding Anglican and coal/triggered production goods (which may be highly useful for modders but not so much in the base game)..

[The Dairy Devil]

Do not get Mare nostrum if you're playing outside of Europe.
The game makes it so that even african warlords understand the basic concept of rennaisance italian Condottieri and this may screw you on those type of playthroughs.

Nothing beats playing Mali or Songhai and seeing Timbuktu roll in the Air Condottieri