Which DLC to start with?

[Huge Beard Guy]

I'd like to add all the DLC but for myself, I'd like to get one at a time and get to grips with each DLC before adding the next.

Which DLC would you recommend getting 1st, 2nd and 3rd?

EDIT: Ta to all for any thoughts and consideration given and mega ta to those who reply.

[VitaKaninen]

Personally, I would start with Royalty, then Ideology, then Biotech last.

[Garrow]

only have ideology

I like it but it's mostly for roleplay purposes, if you just like the gameplay you'd probably be annoyed by all the penalties it can bring to mood. Otherwise it's cool to designate leaders and define your factions more.

Royalty seems to be more magic like and biotech seems to add the most to the game

If you like the roleplay aspect i'd do ideology biotech royalty, if not then biotech royalty ideology

[MadArtillery]

Biotech, lot of good stuff that won't get slammed into you all at once. Also adds children which is pretty big.

[Edmund Greyfox]

One question, 3 different answers.

It really comes down to which one has the features you want to add to your game the most.

[The Blind One]

Yeah you should really look at the features you want.

Royalty, space magic, royal titles and a new empire faction.
Ideology, stuff to give your colony a special twist with rituals and ideologies / religions but also cannibal and naked raiders.
Biotech, babies / children, mechanoids and mechanitors, vampires, furry and xeno abomination factions and genetic tinkering.

Now clearly biotech is the biggest expansion but that won't do you much good if you don't want any of the features.

Personally if I HAD to pick 1 DLC but that's speaking for myself. It'd be biotech because I want it specifically for the children. I love playing in colonies with children and seeing the colony grow naturally. Now I absolutely don't care about vampires, genetic tinkering and mostly ignore the mechanoid stuff unless its a mechanitor playthrough.

My 2nd favorite mod would be ideology, just to give that extra flavor to every colony in the form of rituals. My least favorite is Royalty simply because I dont care much for the features it offers but if you're into space magic yourself, then it might be just what you'd want.

[brian_va]

biotech adds the most "stuff," ideology adds more role play ability, royalty is useless. ideology if only 1 is possible.

obviously those are my own opinions, read the dlc descriptions and go from there.

[Aaronvoyager]

In terms of all the DLC, I'd arguably say that their release dates are a display of how much they change the game. Assuming you play vanilla, of course:

Royalty is, essentially, just a content addition - it's good, and it's bad. Good, because if you still want to play the game normally, you won't be bombarded with 100 varieties of exploding sheep. The concept in itself is quite interesting, being the addition of an Empire, alongside titles you can earn and psycasts for magic and stuff. And why is it bad? Well... because it doesn't add AS MUCH as any of the other DLC. The good thing is that when RimWorld is discounted, this DLC (alongside ideology) gets discounted too.

Ideology is where things get interesting. It transitions the game from "I need to keep my colonists happy, and I'll use these pawns' traits for XYZ..." to "I'll choose what keeps my colonists happy, and my colonists all have these traits...". It's not bad by any means, you can definitely mess around and have some really weird ideologies that can mix well (especially with biotech!), though it does change the gameplay by quite a lot, so you'll have some housework to do on researching the best ways to use it. Even then, it can easily bump up your colony from "i have too many soldiers who can't do plant work" to "i still have too many soldiers, but now the enemies die twice as fast to them. thanks".

And, finally, Biotech (unless some new spaceship DLC drops). Royalty has two concept, being the Empire and psycasts, which it expands on. Ideology has one concept, being religion, which it expands on. How many does Biotech have? Three, technically four. Which it expands on. Bit of an odd order, but, nevertheless, I feel it handles the concepts rather well. Though, being the last on this list, it definitely changes gameplay the most(?) compared to the rest, so you can say bye bye to vanilla, and hello to some good book reading. The plus side? It's really fun. I'd argue this and ideology are tied for best DLC, since you can get pretty creative with either-or. tldr on it; there's a heavy focus on genetics, both modification and breeding, though it's purely kept to human pawns inside the DLC. Like ideology, you get a bit of wiggle room to get crazy, and can even influence some traits/skills/abilities of your starting pawns. AND even of other pawns you meet later into the game. There's also a focus on mechanoids, as well as having mechanoid workers/soldiers, which basically means "you can bypass the population cap by building people"... "and giving birth". Plus, boss battles! Never-before-seen in RimWorld, they're ok.

But, it comes down to preference. I went with Royalty first, then worked all the way up to Biotech. Bad idea by some people's metrics, but I found the DLC much less overwhelming compared to the rest when I first started with it. Whatever you go with though, the learning helper DOES contain tutorials for each DLC, which I only found out after installing combat extended and with it asking me to use the helper :/

[Elvi]

Royalty -> Royalty + Ideology -> Royalty + Ideology + Biotech, as they were released. Unless you are particularly interested in some parts. It is prolly better to play a little activating them in that order, to avoid possible confusion, as they tend to add a lot of stuff and it can get a little crazy if you go straight from vanilla to all three.

[Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡]

I think the royalty DLC is kinda slept on for how powerful just One psycaster can be, and i couldn't imagine my runs at this point without the equipment it adds. I tried this game with no DLC for a bit, really liked it and could scoop up all the DLC at one time. at like 400 some odd hours i decided to dip my toes into mods.

[MadArtillery]

Originally posted by Ivarukฅ(^•ᴥ•^)ฅﾉ彡:

I think the royalty DLC is kinda slept on for how powerful just One psycaster can be, and i couldn't imagine my runs at this point without the equipment it adds. I tried this game with no DLC for a bit, really liked it and could scoop up all the DLC at one time. at like 400 some odd hours i decided to dip my toes into mods.

I do think people sleep on the equipment, implants, and honestly quests of Royalty. I love Royalty quests. Definitely full of good stuff.

[Porky]

I really enjoy the Royalty content. With just a few mods from the vanilla framework collection and a few quality of life additions, it adds alot of quests, story line, and base design potential.

Each DLC stands on its own. Look at what they offer and pick which fits your play style.

[.: DBM :.]

biotech -> royalty & ideology afterward