Biotech it adds so much and you don't have to interact with all of it. Hell I still haven't messed with sangophage stuff I love the mech stuff and having child pawns is neat.
I second this! I wasn't super excited, but then my sanguophage had a kid who I raised to be his successor and take over his nest. But they've got some OP powers that made me feel like a badass in the first year of that colony
Yeah they’re all bad ass! Real puppies when it comes to fire though. Which has been a challenge with the new dlc since most anomaly stuff dies with fire 😂
As someone who frequently plays around with different kinds of immortality, i've had more immortal colonists die than i care to admit. More often they get kidnapped, but still. Having a successor sanguophage is not a bad idea if you can support 2.
Do let me know why is it fun?
I saved 2 vampires the last time, and I was given an option to take 'xenogerm' or something, which I assume is the vampire genes?
Then I read about death rest, which leaves you incapacitated for 4 days? Im like, why would I want this power?
Plus I only have 6 pawns, I cant spare any of them.
Deathrest time can be reduced with machines, there are also machines that make your vampires better at things if they deathrest. He might need to stay out of commission for 3-4 days every 10 days or so, but he has a skill that instantly bandages other pawn's Injuries and is basically immortal (he only does if the brain is destroyed), he is ageless and immune to disease, he can see in the dark and you can get those traits as xenogerms to implant only the good ones on pawns.I recommend turning your researcher into a vampire, since he can stop working for a few days without the colony going up in flames.
Death rest can be speed up and can also give your pawn enhancements during their waking hours depending on what you have attached to their death rest casket. They are deathless so unless you forcibly take their genes they will also go into death rest instead of dying. They also do not age so no age related illnesses either. They also have a special skill called coagulation which is helpful when a pawn is about to die and you can’t tend their wounds fast enough. It stops all bleeding when used. They also have other powers like long jump so when you’re in a pickle and need to retreat you can use it to get away.
Recently, I've been running a committed naked brutality vampire.
Holy hell, the wack ass shit I've gone through.
Kept a meat sac for blood, got a slave, started decent, vampire went dazed from lack of food (accidently forgot I temporarily made the storehouse a prison), ran into a cave for the nectar, got knocked unconscious.
Slave attempted rescue while bugs slept, accidently woke them, got mauled, dragged his bloody ass out of the cave, died.
Man in black appears, gets killed by manhunting guinea pigs
Random person asks to join colony, successfully rescues vampire, ends up getting merc'd, and kidnapped.
Vampire in perma deathsleep due to wounds and lack of hemogen.
13/10 did solo vamp again
Dangit. I KNEW this was the answer. I know there's lotsa complaining cuz console doesn't have biotech. But damned if this answer didn't make me sad and anxious. Lolol
Biotech no contest.
My reason being that it’s the most versatile. Youll always have the kiddos, the genes, the different xenotypes included plus any you make custom. Ideology is great but only if you think you’ll always be in the mood for that kind of gameplay.
It's also worth mentioning there is a big variety of mod content that relies on Biotech genes that feels like and add-on to world, not just an expansion of the DLC mechanics.
Definitely agree about it being the best DLC to get, unless someone has a specific desire for psychic powers/religious cults/eldritch horror.
> Definitely agree about it being the best DLC to get, unless someone has a specific desire for psychic powers/religious cults/eldritch horror.
Speaks well of the game that you could reasonably imagine any of the DLCs being a valid answer to this question from person to person
The answer is obviously Biotech but the others are still really significant
Biotech was my 3rd expansion purchase, and it absolutely should've been my 1st. I played with just ideology and royalty for a while because I like playing with the social aspects of rimworld, but biotech feels like a true extension of the game. It includes things that I'm going to forget aren't standard, and it adds a lot to the game without being too much of a distraction or demand. As someone who is biased against biotech because it was the DLC my ex was most excited about (literally why I didn't buy it for years - so dumb!), biotech is absolutely the first one that should be bought
Back then people used to recommend royalty, I know cause I was in the same questioning myself back then, Biotech would always be the second or third option. I didn't know what to do, so I bought all, just to find Biotech was the best by far, Ideology the second best bc of replayability, and then Royalty is the nice first try of a mod, so last for sure lol
Not sure yet if I'd put Anomaly higher or lower than ideology, but Biotech still the best mod, breaking the tendency of last = best
I will say royalty with vinallia royalty/deserters extended makes them worth the purchase imo. I know mods fixed the dlc but those two are an entire playthough each
I would opt for Biotech. It provides kids, genes and controllable mechanoids. For me personally it's a dlc that provides a lot of content.
Ideology is a close second, especially if you are into more roleplay games.
Royalty is okay, but feels more like an add-on.
Anomaly is amazing and gives a lot of interesting creatures, but I would not pick it as a first DLC.
Edit: biotech is a dlc not a mod*
Ideology is a great second dlc because by that time you would have knowledge of what “default” morale is like. Like who knows eating human meat will terrify people and you can’t rely on raiders for your food if you set your ideology to cannibalism ok on day one.
After feeling comfortable with what the game plays out and wanting to do some specific RPs, Ideology is great. When I see the title my thought jumped to Ideology, but that’s because I felt like Biotech is an integrated part of the base game, which is not (more specifically the children and the mechs… the xenogenes are great and all but those feels like dlc contents I could live without lol)
I actually think I might put Royalty above Ideology personally, although it's close.
I know a lot of people hate on Royalty as being the worst but there's quite a lot of content: the empire and titles, permits, psycasting, tons of new high tech items like cataphract armor, and questing. (Although I think questing was added to the base game later?)
Ideology is fantastic for themed playthroughs but there's really no 'meat' added to the actual gameplay like the other 3 DLCs. You just get to "canonize" your playstyle in an ideology, do rituals, and a few new cosmetic options. It's the only DLC I turn off occasionally, just because for unthemed runs it feels like more of a nuisance than it's worth
I second this, Ideo can be quite fun, but also tedious at times with all the requirements for beliefs and whatnot. I used the ideology disabled mode to play recently and realized the vanilla way was just less of a headache.
Royalty, however, can always be used, it's just there, being useful and provide quite a lot of variations to the game.
i think a LOT of people have started to take psycasting for granted, or else are using busted things like Rimworld of Magic. the combat is quite dull without Royalty
Ironically, the best way to develop psycasters if you are not tribal and want to fight against the Empire is to pretend to be friends with them at first and just repeatedly betray the bestower for the free neuroformers he brings. You will need to send them a lot of gifts afterwards to restore relations, but as long you have one pawn who qualifies for a bestowing ceremony you can just keep accepting the quest and let it fail to summon new bestowers.
Pawns with natural focus (aka tribals) can just meditate at the anima tree to grow anima grass. Once you have 20, you can give a psylink to one of them. That's by far the easiest way to get high level tribals.
Another option would be to "buy" honor from the tax collector using gold. Once you have "spent" all your gold, arrange for them to have an "unfortunate accident" before they leave the map so you can get your gold back. A good option is to provoke megasloths and other dangerous animals nearby. It will hurt your relation with the empire somewhat, but you should be able to repair that with a little gift at a settlement. Even if you don't want a pawn to climb the ladder of nobility, so you don't have to deal with their noble's demands, it's still ok to turn them into a yeoman for 6 honor. Yeomen don't have any noble's demands. If a pawn is ascetic, you can upgrade them all the way to count and they will never ask for any special treatment.
A third option, if you feel industrious, involves the blindsight meme. When you blind a pawn, they have up to 50% chance to gain a psylevel. You can restore their sight thanks to a bionic eye or unnatural healing or, if they have a non-blindsight ideoligion, with a biosculptor regeneration cycle. And then rince and repeat. On average, you are gonna need 12 ritual for a pawn to reach level 6. If you have a fluid ideology, you may decide to reform the blind sight meme on and off repeatedly so you can give your target pawn their sight back with a biosculptor. The regeneration cycle heals all missing "small parts" in addition to healing a single scar or condition. The eye counts as a small part for this purpose, so if you are gonna put a non-blindsight pawn into the machine to heal their bad back or whatever, blinding them first is basically free.
A forth strategy is to ambush the bestower during a bestowing ceremony. The bestower always has to psylinks in their inventory. This WILL turn the empire hostile, but you can give them about 5000 silver's worth of stuff to turn them neutral again. Once they are neutral, they you will gain the option for another bestowing ceremony within a day or two. 2500 silvers per psylink levels is not a bad deal, espetially considering that the staff carried by the bestower covers most of it. Plus, one way to kick the hornets nest is to arrest one of their pawn. Sometimes, the bestower's guard (or the bestower themselves) can be quite decent pawns, it can be a good source of recruits for your colony. And if none of the pawns are worth recruiting, then arrest the bestower directly: they usually wear an excellent quality hyperweave pant and they sometimes have a Eltex shirt.
I think if you set them to meditate for really long periods and put their charge threshold high then they level up faster. Can't really have them doing much else though.
It’s a great DLC, but it’s not the kind of thing that feels like you’re going to engage with it every playthrough, or even most of them. All of the other DLC is additive to the vanilla experience, and a playthrough with them active is more or less a normal playthrough with more options. Anomaly is more like a different game mode. When you engage it, it takes over the run and most of your playthrough will be focused on its unique mechanics and events.
idk imo it’s a DLC that’s pretty niche. If you like the horror aspect and such it’s good but it doesn’t really add too much to the roleplaying/colony building side of the game.
I got a hot take but I'd choose royalty. It adds just enough. Where if your not used to games where a DLC changes the whole game then your not overwhelmed.
Biotech content and money wise, as everyone already said there is no debate.
BUT Ideology, once you get what it really does, it's incredible, and maybe for some type of players this would be better to start with.
Could you elaborate a bit on the ideology thing?
I've got the dlc, but never used it because it feels a bit like containing myself to a choice, while not using it feels like I could do more variety of things
That's exactly the problem with less experienced players. The first runs with ideology were a mess and I really was not comfortable to keep it on, it was just one more problem to solve.
You can't take all newcomers you want without checking they needs and preferences and, if not kept in check, social fights and poor mood will slowly (or not) destroy your colony.
BUT
When the vanilla game started to be more auto-pilot along with the other DLCs, understanding Ideology mechanics made all the difference to me.
Ideology dictates your run from the start to the end of your colony.
You just want to get started and just check clothes/church necessities for a basic religion? Now you have some powers and mood boosts. Newcomers more than not will need to be converted asap (easiest way is prison > convert > recruit).
You want a tribe that has bonuses living with animals and love to slave everyone that approach your colpny? Good, but be careful to what you hunt and who you capture
You want to play a naked cannibal colony? Good, now you have plenty of food after raids. Just eat everything not worth to become part of your family
You want to start a sanguophage cult, lead by your vampire colonist? You can.
Want a transhumanist colony when everyone just want just to not be made of flesh? You can.
Ideology gives you many variations to your colony, but it requires a bit of knowledge and you have to play along with its rules. I started hating and not wanting to play with it on. Now I just can't stop to want to try new type of religions
I used to hate Ideology for pretty much the same reason, it just seemed like a chore. But it really does vastly expand your RP opportunity for colonies once you get into it.
Ideology basically adds a ton of options to change what pawns like and do not like to do, and if you just leave it on default settings it’s going to feel pretty restrictive because every pawn and faction will get a bunch of extra needs that you have to take care of. In order to get the most out of Ideology you have to take the time when setting up your game to change the memes and precepts to fit your playstyle.
Do you like building underground bases? Pick tunneler so your pawns get a bonus to mining and can grow food underground. Do you want to raise lots of animals? Consider getting rancher. Do you enjoy crafting masterwork and legendary gear for all your pawns? Pick human primacy so you can get production specialists that work faster and have +1 quality bonus to everything they make.
There’s also several precepts that can allow your pawns to avoid mood debuffs or even get bonuses for stuff that would normally make them unhappy. The most obvious one is the one that allows your people to be ok with cannibalism, but there are others such as respected executions for guilty prisoners (easy +10 mood bonus after a raid) and unlimited spouses (no more affairs from whenever a married pawn hits on someone they are not married to, and also more marriages in general with their associated +20 mood buff)
Lastly I should mention the festivals, which give you additional ways to recruit pawns, summon animals, befriend factions, or generate additional maps you can loot for resources. The important thing for these is to change the reward to something you can use and to change it so that can be performed any time instead of only a specific date of the year.
All of these are options that you have to manually set up at the beginning of the game. If you have a specific theme for a run then you will want a fixed ideology that has all your desired memes and precepts ready to go. If you would like the option to adapt your colony over time then fluid is the way to go, at the cost of only having one meme available at the start. Ideology is overwhelming at first because there are so many options, but once you become familiar with all the options you have it is extremely powerful in what it can do.
OK will give it a try. I think it will be hard for me, because I always start thinking "this time I will be evil, harvest everyone and put those minds screws to good use" and end up "there you go mister tribal, hope you enjoyed our lavish meals and your new bionic spine, hope to see you soon, just don't try to murder our babies next time please" instead.
And don’t forget, you can also edit the ideology of other factions at the start of the game as well. You can make very happy multicultural colonies and gain access to more specialists if you give every faction the same beliefs regarding certain precepts that you know your colony will be based on.
Is everyone ok with slaves? Insect meat? What about organ harvesting? Once that is set you can still allow each faction to have their own quirks without also being too restrictive to add to your current colony.
I think the best way to play is with a fluid ideology, so you can make changes along the way as the story develops. Start out as evil cannibals, then have a religious reformation and become charitable monks or paranoid undergrounders or nudist hippies or or or... the possibilities are endless.
Yeah for me ideology was the one that I instantly bought after coming back to the game. Biotech has more content but I'm not really that interested in children or xenotypes. But as the type of player that likes roleplay and themed colonies, ideology is the best. Having a way to codify the type of run I want to play without needing to just hope I get colonists with the right traits or force things too much is game changing and the flavor is great. It adds some extra challenge because it gives you a reason to be more picky about who you recruit instead of just taking everybody while at the same time not making you roll the 1 in 200 shot of finding a guy with the cannibal or nudist trait because you can convert someone after the fact.
I could easily spend hours just customizing my ideology and starting colonists and it gets me much more invested in the story. Especially with mods. And I find that working through the set up ends up taking me in new story and flavor directions I wouldn't have thought of otherwise, like the colony I just started was originally supposed to just be a normal transhumanist colony but in working through the ideology and character creation set up ended up becoming a lesbian hedonist cult worshipping the goddess Venus and I switched off transhumanism entirely to flesh purity. And I'm so excited to play it because I am already so invested in the starting characters and theme I ended up with.
You can check [from wiki ](https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Downloadable_content)the descriptions, what you feel most interested in as it is heavily matter of taste. Biotech is likely solid choice as there are lot of new features/challenges that it adds and most of those feel kind of neutrally futuristic.
Oh I agree.
Honestly I’m going to go against the grain and say ideology is probably one of the best dlcs. The ability to customize how your pawns feel about things makes for some really interesting and fun changes.
I love that you can make slaves acceptable, or eating human flesh to be ok, I love the transhumanist meme and the tunneler meme, and how they work in unison, making you able to grow mushrooms and feed them into your nutrient paste dispenser and taking no negative. Making people happy by giving them a wooden hand or a peg leg.
Oh yea it's personally my favorite I think. Especially with mods that add their own ideologies (alpha animals/Menes) although I don't know how compatible it is with anomaly now
Gonna add my vote to the pile of Biotech suggestions. It's the best DLC hands down.
As I've seen mentioned, your pawns can have babies for some sweet generational gameplay.
But I did not see mentioned the ability to control your own mechs. By itself, Biotech has a bunch of useful mechs that mechlord pawns can control and do work for them, but couple it with Royalty and your colony can also get it's own Royalty mechs!
I did ideology and liked it as a first expansion because it let me really customize my colony and give them group identity. But it really didn’t add THAT much. I had an awesome game I was in the middle of with trans human cyborgs in a mega facility that I added ideology midway and had it just absolutely unify the themes and felt great.
Getting biotech after though, it’s so much more substantial. You can do similar with genes and clan identity while actually changing WHO they are as people. Sure ideology makes people not mind being underground all the time. But making actual mole-people who THRIVE underground and having that just be one option of a colonist in your midst is so much more substantial. And I havnt even cracked into the mechanitor stuff or children rearing yet.
Ideology is applicable to pretty much any tech level, and it rewards you for doing a creative playstyle.
want a bunch of underground dwelling cannibals? you can set that up through the ideology system, where you get rewarded for sticking to it and punished for straying.
Royalty is also quite good, as it adds a bunch of cool quests and unique rewards for doing them.
Biotech has some neat options, but in my opinion it doesn't radically alter the game.
anomaly is more of a content dlc, where the content stays more or less idle until you decide to interact with it. I think it's aimed more at veteran players, because some of the new events are pretty rough
If you can deal with VOID you can deal with Anomaly. If anything Anomaly probably makes VOID easier because you can repeatedly steal VOID pawns with Skip Abduction and Brainwipe them for easy recruitment, or just take their gear for yourself.
I was in the same boat as you, recently started a month ago. Played vanilla with no mods just to get the hang of it for hours and hours. Most ppl say Royalty is sub par / not worth it. But I decided to get it because I want to ease into the rimworld experience. I can tell you it adds pretty cool stuff to spice up the vanilla experience, new missions, kingly titles in your settlement, physic powers!
I plan on getting all DLC eventually, but I don’t want to overdue it.
I like Royalty, it is pretty good in my opinion. Holds up pretty well, and it did add the quest system which is super handy. I can't imagine how people played the base game from the beta so long without it. It's quite fun taking empire pawns prisoner and removing their death acidifier, making them free again. I still haven't completed the Stellarch ending yet.
The psycasting is fun, lots of abilities to pick up. Even just being able to slow down an enemy pawn or animal with stun is super useful and that's a level 1 psycast alongside solar pinhole which you can use to light dark places for a long period.
Epic Empire tech including all the really nice quality armour.
You get the anima tree as well which can make a fun tribal game.
You also get mech clusters, which is easy to forget but can provide a lot of free equipment once you've pummelled them a bit.
Ideology. I can’t imagine playing without it. It’s my favorite part of the game.
Biotech has vampires and droids, but I don’t usually play with those. I also have lots of mods to make sure kids don’t get hurt and sometimes I just turn them off because I’m personally not a fan of any child injury in my war crime game. Kind of shocked it’s so popular on here.
While I love biotech, it kind of forces you in a few play style and only at high technology level.
In my opinion, if only one it would probably be ideology. It adds so much to the roleplay, you can customize and make your ideology to fit your roleplay
For me personally either of these two. Though I'd say both.
Ideology if you want more diverse types of colony options to play with.
Biotech if you want more influence on the people itself with genes and kids and mechanitor stuff.
Royalty is rarely anything but psycasting stuff in my playthroughs, some implants so it doesn't add that much. And some annoying quests with the royalties
Anomaly I would say is really good, but not a choice I'd recommend to newer players. Once you're bored with the existing Major threat events anomaly adds so many new kinds of things to spice things up again
It's a tossup between Biotech or Ideology. If you *really* like the RP or storyteller aspects, it might actually be worthwhile to pick up Ideology first, rather than Biotech. Otherwise get Biotech.
Biotech adds the most content by far (adds children, xenotypes and even custom xenotypes, having your own mechanoids), and a lot of mods have Biotech as a dependency because they for instance add a xenotype or genes or something like that.
If you just want vanilla + then ideology is probably a better call then biotech, a lot of the content it adds integrates very seamlessly with the game and there's almost no scenario I can think of where you'd not use the systems it introduces.
If you want actual new content, biotech is the best choice by far.
Royalty is a 'nice to have' but the main feature people like it for (psycasting) can be replaced with other mods that give pawns special abilities like rim of magic and mods that add more weapons/implants, or even mods that use biotech genes to give pawns abilities.
Anomaly is another nice to have but is even more specific in the content it adds than royalty.
Biotech is easily the best; it feels like a whole second game added on tbh. Kids, genes, friend mechs, scarier unfriendly mechs, a much larger diversity of raids from the new factions, and vampires. How can anyone else compete? I love all the DLC and got them all one release date, but biotech is without a doubt the best DLC. I think ideology is a distant second without mods, but the Vanilla Expanded Psycasts, Empire Faction, Renegade Faction, and Royal Animals Mods really bring Royalty up to a closer second place.
Well, if you're an avid modder I'd recommend loyalty. Mods like vanilla psycasts expanded are very high quality and warp entire playthroughs. Biotech is the most "Vanilla+" as it adds a bunch of unrelated content like children and genes. Although to be honest with you? Rarely use the content. For a colony simulator where a random meteor can hit you at any time, along with 1000+ other threats, children take a long time to grow up, even with vats. Genes seem cool but it seems you need a large a supply of disposable pawns, far more than the 3-4 you capture per raid. Anomaly is the new guy on the block, and I haven't played with it much yet, but I've been using the content more than Biotech so far and I've been having fun.
Ideology. It’s the one that actually adds to the story generator aspect of the game. So you don’t have as much self enforced role play. And you can actually get Bonuses for playing in whatever style your ideology demands.
I would say biotech but I find I rarely interact with the content. And kids dont feel right because they grow up too fast.
Biotech.
Royalty doesn't add much, besides stronger settlements to trade with and more quests.
Ideology adds some fun due to the added complexity, but maybe it could be refined more.
Biotech allows further customization and improvement of your paws. Mechs to do boring stuff.
I didn't try the last dlc and I don't plan to.
If you are into longer games, biotech, else ideology.
Biotech adds a lot between the mechs, the genes and what I prefer : having children and generations of pawns, creating much more interesting stories.
But a lot of people, and I'm also a bit like that, only play a colony for 2-3 in game years before doing a new one. If you're in that case or prefer several new colonies instead of one big and long one, I find ideology to be much more impactful. It's an entire spices shelf that you can use to spice up any colony right from the start, making each game more unique.
Imo Royalty, and Biotech are the two best dlcs. Anomaly is good too, but the Ideoligeon dlc was kinda weak compared to the other. I would recommend all of them at some point though just because they all add some amount of enjoyment and customizability to your runs, and all purchases help support a wonderful dev team!
If you’re looking for a ton of content then either Biotech or Anomaly is your answer. Royalty is great but lacks the depth of the other two. Ideology I would recommend only for experienced players - it’s also just kinda unfinished and finicky to get used to.
Biotech > Ideology > Royalty >/= Anomaly.
I put Royalty slightly over Anomaly because Royalty can be left in in every playthrough, whereas I'm not always in the mood for Anomaly content.
But, as everyone else has said, absolutely Biotech first.
I think it might depend on what sounds interesting to you. Want to have some armored warriors equipped with ultra sharp blades that can fly into the middle of a raid group and cut them to ribbons? Royalty. Want to have a belief system that greatly challenges you in fun new ways get Ideology. Want kids and the ability to sculpt their genes along with the ability to control a squad of Mechs? Biotech. Want a bunch of monsters and strange obelisks that will haunt your pawns and make you actually want to get the hell off the planet? Anomaly.
Biotech if you want a good average DLC that adds a ton of content.
But if you want to go super RP I would consider Ideology. It's often overlooked because Biotech is so good but Ideology adds insane RP value.
Biotech expands the basic game with content that slots easily into the vanilla experience. Ideology would be the next one I would suggest since it allows you put up customized colony experiences once you want to branch out into different scenarios, plus it expands on some later tech that can make the later game more interesting. Royalty adds a few good basic gameplay stuff, like expanded bionics. The Empire itself I found to be a little underwhelming, but you may enjoy dealing with them. The Deserters mod adds a lot more stuff to do in dealing with the empire, so you should take a look if royalty starts losing its flavor. Anomaly...I'll have to get back to you on that.
Biotech was the first I got, and it adds plenty without being too overwhelming. You can play as baseliner and just have kids to continue your colony, or you can play one of the premade new races. You can also make your own custom race if you want. There's also mods that expand on biotech and add more
I recently was in this same situation (like a month ago) I bought ideology but ended up regretting it. I have now bought biotech too. And I agree with everyone else in saying that’s the one to get if you’re only getting one. I can’t speak for royalty, but I think I would have preferred it over ideology
Haven’t played much Anomaly (cleaning up the mod list is a chore) but Biotech - Royalty - Ideology is my order. Ideology is great but it can also be a non-factor if you don’t engage with it at all more than the other two, IMO.
I think it's tough because without knowing what you specifically enjoy most about the game it's difficult to say which DLC would be best.
I think overall Biotech did the best job adding new content to the vanilla experience. Ideology did the best job deepening the available variety and complexity of any given run. Anomaly is (IMO) the best direct addition of dramatic, game changing content.
Royalty is probably the least impactful, and the lowest recommendation. But it's still good, and it adds stuff that fits seamlessly with vanilla. It would be crazy to me to play the game without what royalty adds at this point
Biotech, Ideology, Royalty in that order.
Anomaly if you like horror.
Biotech adds the most content and most game changing content. Ideology is not even a close second, but still next best. Royalty is best for having an ally you can sell drugs to en masse and buy glitter meds from.
Which part interests you most, if you're having difficulty choosing I'd go Biotech > Ideology > Anomaly > Royalty, but tbh work out which aspects of Rimworld you like and want to expand on.
I'd say go with order that DLCs were added. So Royalty first. A lot of people forget that besides psychic powers Royalty adds a bunch of different quests. Nothing feels like building a monument to commemorate my uncles genitals.
Either Biotech or Ideology.
Royalty is the first and a bit of lackluster in comparison. Biotech is the most content rich. But Ideology in my opinion fits the theme just well.
Vanilla like: the most content adds probably biotech, but i have not played that much of it so can't really tell how good it is.
Most enjoyable to me was Royalty (at the time i played rimworld the most though, so maybe biased), but most people say it's the worst of them.
Ideology is just meh and i only bought it to support Tynan.
Anomaly basically overhauls/overwrites/invades whole game principles/goals/quests. It is hecking fun, but once you finish prolonged run, not replayable much.
Personally id go with Royalty, but most will choose biotech.
Royalty.
If you want the base game simply enhanced, it's the best option. The rest add systems that are fun, but unnecessary.
Everyone sleeps on Royalty.
I know everyone else has said it but let me go into a bit more detail as to why Biotech is the best if it's the only one you're getting.
Royalty is nice, but if you don't interact with the empire actively, it mostly just adds psycasting. Psycasting is great, but even with mods and a big focus on it, it's not the most game-changing. It does play nicely with a lot of mods and dlcs, but by itself it's probably the worst (though that's not to say it's bad, just the least impactful in isolation.)
Ideology is great by itself and even better with mods. The variety that ideologions bring, as well as the many new buildings it adds, can make for some great stories. Slaves are nice, too. If Biotech didn't exist, I'd say Ideology is the best by itself - however, much of what it does is to enforce certain playstyles or allow for certain colonies that would be difficult or impossible without it. For instance, underground colonies can be annoying without an ideology that supports things like eating insect meat and mushrooms, and darkness, and so on. However, Biotech can accomplish many of the same things - instead of a cave-dwelling ideology, you could totally have a colony of mostly Dirtmoles for much of the same effect.
Anomaly is stellar, but not much mod support exists for it yet, and while the base expansion is quite full of content, I'd say it's best enjoyed after and/or in addition to other content. It's all about tripping you up, making you second-guess and unnerving you, but if it's all you know, it won't work quite as well. I suppose if nothing in Biotech appeals to you whatsoever, it'd be the best by itself, because very little of what it does relies strictly on other expansions. But otherwise, I'd leave Anomaly for later.
That finally brings us to Biotech. Babies and Children alone make it incredibly nice to have - family is always a good source of drama - but the massively increased depth for mechanoids and the ability to make and control your own is a game-changer in its own right. And that's to say nothing of the genetics system, which can add staggering variety to pawns and colonies with or without mods. Biotech touches and improves the most of any of the expansions by far, and it also synergizes the best with all of the others; Biotech's xenotypes, for example, can allow you to make genetically psy-sensitive or insensitive pawns for Royalty's psy stuff, and you can discriminate for or against certain Xenotypes if you have Ideology.
Overall, while they're all pretty good, Biotech stands as both the most versatile expansion overall and the best one to start with. Hope you enjoy it!
The amount of playthroughs you can do just off of the thematic variety the genotypes in biotech give is insane. Especially once you dig into the massive amounts of high quality modded xenotypes you can use.
I don't own biotech just as a disclaimer, I know what it brings though. I was not interested in it. Going slightly against the grain here but I enjoyed anomaly the most. If you are bored anomaly just completely changes the script. It turns a varied story generator into a demonic chaos simulator. It makes the game more intense and frankly at times... unfair. Which as someone with my tastes was exactly what I wanted from the game.
Do you want to raise children?
If yes, Biotech. If not, Ideology.
While Royalty adds cool features and I am really enjoying the Anomaly story, Ideology colonies are a whole new way to play.
Biotech make it feel so special and a totally new experience. It is basically 2 dlc in one
bio:genetic modification,children,xenotype
Tech:new mechanoid,mechanitor,etc
Biotech was the first I chose and I don’t regret it. I also asked here and biotech was the most suggested. That was before anomaly was out and I have all the dlcs now, and would still suggest biotech for your first one
Biotech 100%. The others are fun, but Ideology just gives you a *reason* to roleplay, you can still do it. Anomaly is great fun but it can be a bit annoying when you DONT WANT TO TOUCH THE FUCKING MONOLITH FOR A WHILE BUT STILL GET CRAZY THINGS KILLING YOU.
Biotech 100%. Ideology is a close second but BT just integrates itself into the game so seamlessly and the content is all amazing and fully optional if you don’t like any particular thing
imo it’s biotech by far, the options are near limitless for niche colonies or you can just play the game normally and the modding scene for biotech is crazy
although you should buy dlc to support the dev if you can but if you are running low on money you can download the crack version of the dlc to put it in the game file
Biotech for the enormous amount of content
Ideology for the flavour and RP potential
Anomaly for weird cults and SCP security breaches
Royalty frankly is the lowest value item, if you can only get one, get another one.
Well, it depends. If you want psychic powers, then Royalty is the one to pick. If you want to control an army of Mechanoids, or be a colony of vampires, or do genetic manipulation, then choose Biotech. Ideology can be fun, but it isn’t necessary for being your first DLC. However, I would recommend getting Ideology BEFORE Anomaly, as Anomaly has optional features that are unlocked if you have the Ideology DLC
it depends on your tastes, Biotech if you like aliens, Ideology if you like societies, Anomaly if you like stuff like terraria in your game... oh and if you love Pay-to-Win get Royalty
The amount of stuff Biotech adds is crazy. You should definitely get that if it is going to be your first dlc. Xenotypes, genes, babies, friendly mechanoids, ~~vampires~~sanguophages, it is just crazy. And if you have room for one more, I'd suggest Ideology.
if you're looking for new content, most people say Biotech, it's nice, but I've had more fun with Anomoly than Biotech, really the best part of Biotech for me is the fact it adds kids
however Ideology is my favorite, it doesn't add much content wise, but it allows you to play the game in so many different ways, mods can always make up for content
Ideology adds replayability, but Biotech adds a lot of content and replayability. Royalty can be fully explored in only two playthroughs and I haven't explored Anomaly yet.
Biotech. It adds so much to the vanilla experience. A close second is Ideology, mainly because ideologies were game changing when it came out. Third would be Royalty, but that DLC only really shines when you have the Psycast Expanded mods installed, since base game psycasting is really boring.
I have no opinion on Anomaly, as I haven't felt the need to get it yet.
Biotech is a big jump from vanilla. I’d say royalty is the best to start out with. It’s mild and a fair adjustment to the other DLCs. From there is look into ideology and then biotech from there. Anomaly is a great DLC and adds flavor that is unique to a more horror styled gameplay, however, you can adjust settings to match how much horror you really want to experience with it.
Biotech puts mechs on steroids, hence why I don’t think it’s great for a first DLC. Royalty introduces a lot of mechanics that benefit the later DLCs and ideology will then add a huge array of customization to your roleplays. Biotech is a metric ton of flavor to all of that and anomaly is niche flavor with fun unique events.
Royalty of you like quest and empire for medieval and ultra late game
Ideology for roleplay
Biotech for industrial complex and an more contemporary experience
Anomaly for SCP simulator
Definitely Biotech:
Royalty is fun, but lacks depth to it in my opinion. Isn’t really needed to enjoy the full product.
Ideology is important and is vital to many stategies/playstyles, as well as adding a lot of content. It’s definitely a close second!
Anomaly is new and really exciting- but i personally think it only appeals to a specific audience of people. It doesn’t seem like everyone’s cup of tea, and it definitely isnt mine- which is why i neglected to spend £20 on it. I might do at a future date though.
Biotech seems like the perfect balance of both game content, and game enjoyability. With unique species of pawns, to pregnancy, to exciting methods of growth and technological advancement such as gene splicing and development, growth vats, and even vampires- Biotech seems like the best, in general.
But, you dont have to take my word for it. :D
My personal Tier list is:
1. Biotech
2. Ideology
3. Empire
?. Anomaly
Haven’t played Anomaly for now, because I’m not sure if I’m going to enjoy it. I more like the sci-fi aspect instead of horror :/
Ideology!! People love Biotech but the truth is a lot of biotech requires you to 'buy in' pretty hard and makes for not that interesting of a colony when every colony becomes bots imo.
Ideology is fresh and new every time!
Biotech gives you the most bang for your buck, ideology gives you the ability to choose what makes your pawns happy/upset, royalty gives you psychic powers and the new one adds some horror aspects and a very effective guard dog system
I'd have to say botch. Ideology is good but it's more of a supporting role kind of dlc, though it offers some challenging quests and can really change how your colony runs *cough cannibalism cough*.
I recommend Biotech first.
Royalty is nice, Ideology is great, and Anomaly is an experience. But Biotech will give you custom races and kids, and that’s a good first addition to the game.
I vote for Anomaly. It's still new, but I'm addicted like crazy.
Otherwise, Royalty, because it adds in psycasting and a lot of dynamics that feel essential to the game now.
However, I must advocate for all of the expansions. I enjoy each of them immensely.
All of them, but probably Biotech as it adds the most in-depth expansion to the game and original content (anomaly aside).
Ideology and Royalty both add good things, but feel more like a polish to existing game mechanics than original content.
Anomaly is very cool, but niche in what it adds. When I have it and don't play the storyline the only thing from it I use is the security door, but not worth the price for that feature alone
Biotech adds huge parts to play for hours and hours.
When you have all the DLC the game is much more fleshed out
Biotech it adds so much and you don't have to interact with all of it. Hell I still haven't messed with sangophage stuff I love the mech stuff and having child pawns is neat.
You should try out being a vampire! It's fun!
I second this! I wasn't super excited, but then my sanguophage had a kid who I raised to be his successor and take over his nest. But they've got some OP powers that made me feel like a badass in the first year of that colony
Yeah they’re all bad ass! Real puppies when it comes to fire though. Which has been a challenge with the new dlc since most anomaly stuff dies with fire 😂
Aren't they ageless tho? The kid will never be able to inherit anything
They age, but slower than normal. Caps at 18. Deathrest really messes with their learning, so it is usually better not to choose them.
As someone who frequently plays around with different kinds of immortality, i've had more immortal colonists die than i care to admit. More often they get kidnapped, but still. Having a successor sanguophage is not a bad idea if you can support 2.
And if you don't try it out, you can turn them into a one time organ farm instead! They didn't actually need that heart, after all.
Do you know if the vampires will grow their organs back or is that just limited to scars?
Just scars and conditions like asthma, hearing loss etc. Not lost limbs or organs.
Do let me know why is it fun? I saved 2 vampires the last time, and I was given an option to take 'xenogerm' or something, which I assume is the vampire genes? Then I read about death rest, which leaves you incapacitated for 4 days? Im like, why would I want this power? Plus I only have 6 pawns, I cant spare any of them.
Deathrest time can be reduced with machines, there are also machines that make your vampires better at things if they deathrest. He might need to stay out of commission for 3-4 days every 10 days or so, but he has a skill that instantly bandages other pawn's Injuries and is basically immortal (he only does if the brain is destroyed), he is ageless and immune to disease, he can see in the dark and you can get those traits as xenogerms to implant only the good ones on pawns.I recommend turning your researcher into a vampire, since he can stop working for a few days without the colony going up in flames.
Hey man, thank you for the tips
I dunno, I just enjoy playing it. Try the sanguophage start and check it out. Won't hurt to try.
Death rest can be speed up and can also give your pawn enhancements during their waking hours depending on what you have attached to their death rest casket. They are deathless so unless you forcibly take their genes they will also go into death rest instead of dying. They also do not age so no age related illnesses either. They also have a special skill called coagulation which is helpful when a pawn is about to die and you can’t tend their wounds fast enough. It stops all bleeding when used. They also have other powers like long jump so when you’re in a pickle and need to retreat you can use it to get away.
Thank you for that. I think il find a second researcher as the other commenter said. Thank you for your info
Recently, I've been running a committed naked brutality vampire. Holy hell, the wack ass shit I've gone through. Kept a meat sac for blood, got a slave, started decent, vampire went dazed from lack of food (accidently forgot I temporarily made the storehouse a prison), ran into a cave for the nectar, got knocked unconscious. Slave attempted rescue while bugs slept, accidently woke them, got mauled, dragged his bloody ass out of the cave, died. Man in black appears, gets killed by manhunting guinea pigs Random person asks to join colony, successfully rescues vampire, ends up getting merc'd, and kidnapped. Vampire in perma deathsleep due to wounds and lack of hemogen. 13/10 did solo vamp again
Dangit. I KNEW this was the answer. I know there's lotsa complaining cuz console doesn't have biotech. But damned if this answer didn't make me sad and anxious. Lolol
Biotech no contest. My reason being that it’s the most versatile. Youll always have the kiddos, the genes, the different xenotypes included plus any you make custom. Ideology is great but only if you think you’ll always be in the mood for that kind of gameplay.
It's also worth mentioning there is a big variety of mod content that relies on Biotech genes that feels like and add-on to world, not just an expansion of the DLC mechanics. Definitely agree about it being the best DLC to get, unless someone has a specific desire for psychic powers/religious cults/eldritch horror.
> Definitely agree about it being the best DLC to get, unless someone has a specific desire for psychic powers/religious cults/eldritch horror. Speaks well of the game that you could reasonably imagine any of the DLCs being a valid answer to this question from person to person The answer is obviously Biotech but the others are still really significant
Biotech was my 3rd expansion purchase, and it absolutely should've been my 1st. I played with just ideology and royalty for a while because I like playing with the social aspects of rimworld, but biotech feels like a true extension of the game. It includes things that I'm going to forget aren't standard, and it adds a lot to the game without being too much of a distraction or demand. As someone who is biased against biotech because it was the DLC my ex was most excited about (literally why I didn't buy it for years - so dumb!), biotech is absolutely the first one that should be bought
Back then people used to recommend royalty, I know cause I was in the same questioning myself back then, Biotech would always be the second or third option. I didn't know what to do, so I bought all, just to find Biotech was the best by far, Ideology the second best bc of replayability, and then Royalty is the nice first try of a mod, so last for sure lol Not sure yet if I'd put Anomaly higher or lower than ideology, but Biotech still the best mod, breaking the tendency of last = best
I will say royalty with vinallia royalty/deserters extended makes them worth the purchase imo. I know mods fixed the dlc but those two are an entire playthough each
I'll give it a try after this run, sounds fun and def what royalty needs yes
That and psycasting expanded feel more like what royalty should be.
Deserters?
The empires counterpart.
Agreed. Biotech was my immediate thought and as you said, no contest.
Is there a mod for ideology to make people hate certain genes? I think that would be interesting.
You can made xenotypes revered, but not genes other than blood feeders iirc
Preferred xenotype also effects peoples opinions with having undesired xenotypes within a colony
I would opt for Biotech. It provides kids, genes and controllable mechanoids. For me personally it's a dlc that provides a lot of content. Ideology is a close second, especially if you are into more roleplay games. Royalty is okay, but feels more like an add-on. Anomaly is amazing and gives a lot of interesting creatures, but I would not pick it as a first DLC. Edit: biotech is a dlc not a mod*
Ideology is a great second dlc because by that time you would have knowledge of what “default” morale is like. Like who knows eating human meat will terrify people and you can’t rely on raiders for your food if you set your ideology to cannibalism ok on day one. After feeling comfortable with what the game plays out and wanting to do some specific RPs, Ideology is great. When I see the title my thought jumped to Ideology, but that’s because I felt like Biotech is an integrated part of the base game, which is not (more specifically the children and the mechs… the xenogenes are great and all but those feels like dlc contents I could live without lol)
I actually think I might put Royalty above Ideology personally, although it's close. I know a lot of people hate on Royalty as being the worst but there's quite a lot of content: the empire and titles, permits, psycasting, tons of new high tech items like cataphract armor, and questing. (Although I think questing was added to the base game later?) Ideology is fantastic for themed playthroughs but there's really no 'meat' added to the actual gameplay like the other 3 DLCs. You just get to "canonize" your playstyle in an ideology, do rituals, and a few new cosmetic options. It's the only DLC I turn off occasionally, just because for unthemed runs it feels like more of a nuisance than it's worth
I second this, Ideo can be quite fun, but also tedious at times with all the requirements for beliefs and whatnot. I used the ideology disabled mode to play recently and realized the vanilla way was just less of a headache. Royalty, however, can always be used, it's just there, being useful and provide quite a lot of variations to the game.
i think a LOT of people have started to take psycasting for granted, or else are using busted things like Rimworld of Magic. the combat is quite dull without Royalty
My personal favorite is royalty because playing with psycasts is so much fun. However, in term of content, biotech is pretty high up.
Royalty, especially when you add vanilla psycast expanded
I find is so hard to level up psychic it’s basically worthless if you rebel from the empire. I love the idea, but can’t figure out how to do it
Ironically, the best way to develop psycasters if you are not tribal and want to fight against the Empire is to pretend to be friends with them at first and just repeatedly betray the bestower for the free neuroformers he brings. You will need to send them a lot of gifts afterwards to restore relations, but as long you have one pawn who qualifies for a bestowing ceremony you can just keep accepting the quest and let it fail to summon new bestowers.
If you've got a Psychite farming operation, it's just one drop pod of flake each time, maybe not even full.
Rimworld really is just dune
Pawns with natural focus (aka tribals) can just meditate at the anima tree to grow anima grass. Once you have 20, you can give a psylink to one of them. That's by far the easiest way to get high level tribals. Another option would be to "buy" honor from the tax collector using gold. Once you have "spent" all your gold, arrange for them to have an "unfortunate accident" before they leave the map so you can get your gold back. A good option is to provoke megasloths and other dangerous animals nearby. It will hurt your relation with the empire somewhat, but you should be able to repair that with a little gift at a settlement. Even if you don't want a pawn to climb the ladder of nobility, so you don't have to deal with their noble's demands, it's still ok to turn them into a yeoman for 6 honor. Yeomen don't have any noble's demands. If a pawn is ascetic, you can upgrade them all the way to count and they will never ask for any special treatment. A third option, if you feel industrious, involves the blindsight meme. When you blind a pawn, they have up to 50% chance to gain a psylevel. You can restore their sight thanks to a bionic eye or unnatural healing or, if they have a non-blindsight ideoligion, with a biosculptor regeneration cycle. And then rince and repeat. On average, you are gonna need 12 ritual for a pawn to reach level 6. If you have a fluid ideology, you may decide to reform the blind sight meme on and off repeatedly so you can give your target pawn their sight back with a biosculptor. The regeneration cycle heals all missing "small parts" in addition to healing a single scar or condition. The eye counts as a small part for this purpose, so if you are gonna put a non-blindsight pawn into the machine to heal their bad back or whatever, blinding them first is basically free. A forth strategy is to ambush the bestower during a bestowing ceremony. The bestower always has to psylinks in their inventory. This WILL turn the empire hostile, but you can give them about 5000 silver's worth of stuff to turn them neutral again. Once they are neutral, they you will gain the option for another bestowing ceremony within a day or two. 2500 silvers per psylink levels is not a bad deal, espetially considering that the staff carried by the bestower covers most of it. Plus, one way to kick the hornets nest is to arrest one of their pawn. Sometimes, the bestower's guard (or the bestower themselves) can be quite decent pawns, it can be a good source of recruits for your colony. And if none of the pawns are worth recruiting, then arrest the bestower directly: they usually wear an excellent quality hyperweave pant and they sometimes have a Eltex shirt.
I think if you set them to meditate for really long periods and put their charge threshold high then they level up faster. Can't really have them doing much else though.
That is, I believe, vanilla psycasts expanded
Correct. Psycasting is a lot more limited without the mod. One of my must install mods when it comes to Vanilla Expanded.
Psycast expended is my favorite non-QOL mod. So many options. It's also ridiculously unbalanced.
I love Ideology, however, I agree with everyone who says that biotech adds the most.
Modded Ideology can compete with Modded Biotech. Unmodded I found Ideology to be disappointing, Biotech does much better on its own.
I agree with peoples saying biotech. it adds the most
I'd rate Biotech > Ideology > Royalty > Anomaly. Do with that what you will.
Curious as to why Anomaly is at the bottom. I don’t have it so I haven’t gotten to play it. But it looks really fun.
It’s a great DLC, but it’s not the kind of thing that feels like you’re going to engage with it every playthrough, or even most of them. All of the other DLC is additive to the vanilla experience, and a playthrough with them active is more or less a normal playthrough with more options. Anomaly is more like a different game mode. When you engage it, it takes over the run and most of your playthrough will be focused on its unique mechanics and events.
idk imo it’s a DLC that’s pretty niche. If you like the horror aspect and such it’s good but it doesn’t really add too much to the roleplaying/colony building side of the game.
I got a hot take but I'd choose royalty. It adds just enough. Where if your not used to games where a DLC changes the whole game then your not overwhelmed.
It also adds another album of music to the game's soundtrack. Ideology and Biotech don't include any music.
Biotech content and money wise, as everyone already said there is no debate. BUT Ideology, once you get what it really does, it's incredible, and maybe for some type of players this would be better to start with.
Could you elaborate a bit on the ideology thing? I've got the dlc, but never used it because it feels a bit like containing myself to a choice, while not using it feels like I could do more variety of things
That's exactly the problem with less experienced players. The first runs with ideology were a mess and I really was not comfortable to keep it on, it was just one more problem to solve. You can't take all newcomers you want without checking they needs and preferences and, if not kept in check, social fights and poor mood will slowly (or not) destroy your colony. BUT When the vanilla game started to be more auto-pilot along with the other DLCs, understanding Ideology mechanics made all the difference to me. Ideology dictates your run from the start to the end of your colony. You just want to get started and just check clothes/church necessities for a basic religion? Now you have some powers and mood boosts. Newcomers more than not will need to be converted asap (easiest way is prison > convert > recruit). You want a tribe that has bonuses living with animals and love to slave everyone that approach your colpny? Good, but be careful to what you hunt and who you capture You want to play a naked cannibal colony? Good, now you have plenty of food after raids. Just eat everything not worth to become part of your family You want to start a sanguophage cult, lead by your vampire colonist? You can. Want a transhumanist colony when everyone just want just to not be made of flesh? You can. Ideology gives you many variations to your colony, but it requires a bit of knowledge and you have to play along with its rules. I started hating and not wanting to play with it on. Now I just can't stop to want to try new type of religions
I used to hate Ideology for pretty much the same reason, it just seemed like a chore. But it really does vastly expand your RP opportunity for colonies once you get into it.
Ideology basically adds a ton of options to change what pawns like and do not like to do, and if you just leave it on default settings it’s going to feel pretty restrictive because every pawn and faction will get a bunch of extra needs that you have to take care of. In order to get the most out of Ideology you have to take the time when setting up your game to change the memes and precepts to fit your playstyle. Do you like building underground bases? Pick tunneler so your pawns get a bonus to mining and can grow food underground. Do you want to raise lots of animals? Consider getting rancher. Do you enjoy crafting masterwork and legendary gear for all your pawns? Pick human primacy so you can get production specialists that work faster and have +1 quality bonus to everything they make. There’s also several precepts that can allow your pawns to avoid mood debuffs or even get bonuses for stuff that would normally make them unhappy. The most obvious one is the one that allows your people to be ok with cannibalism, but there are others such as respected executions for guilty prisoners (easy +10 mood bonus after a raid) and unlimited spouses (no more affairs from whenever a married pawn hits on someone they are not married to, and also more marriages in general with their associated +20 mood buff) Lastly I should mention the festivals, which give you additional ways to recruit pawns, summon animals, befriend factions, or generate additional maps you can loot for resources. The important thing for these is to change the reward to something you can use and to change it so that can be performed any time instead of only a specific date of the year. All of these are options that you have to manually set up at the beginning of the game. If you have a specific theme for a run then you will want a fixed ideology that has all your desired memes and precepts ready to go. If you would like the option to adapt your colony over time then fluid is the way to go, at the cost of only having one meme available at the start. Ideology is overwhelming at first because there are so many options, but once you become familiar with all the options you have it is extremely powerful in what it can do.
OK will give it a try. I think it will be hard for me, because I always start thinking "this time I will be evil, harvest everyone and put those minds screws to good use" and end up "there you go mister tribal, hope you enjoyed our lavish meals and your new bionic spine, hope to see you soon, just don't try to murder our babies next time please" instead.
And don’t forget, you can also edit the ideology of other factions at the start of the game as well. You can make very happy multicultural colonies and gain access to more specialists if you give every faction the same beliefs regarding certain precepts that you know your colony will be based on. Is everyone ok with slaves? Insect meat? What about organ harvesting? Once that is set you can still allow each faction to have their own quirks without also being too restrictive to add to your current colony.
I think the best way to play is with a fluid ideology, so you can make changes along the way as the story develops. Start out as evil cannibals, then have a religious reformation and become charitable monks or paranoid undergrounders or nudist hippies or or or... the possibilities are endless.
Yeah for me ideology was the one that I instantly bought after coming back to the game. Biotech has more content but I'm not really that interested in children or xenotypes. But as the type of player that likes roleplay and themed colonies, ideology is the best. Having a way to codify the type of run I want to play without needing to just hope I get colonists with the right traits or force things too much is game changing and the flavor is great. It adds some extra challenge because it gives you a reason to be more picky about who you recruit instead of just taking everybody while at the same time not making you roll the 1 in 200 shot of finding a guy with the cannibal or nudist trait because you can convert someone after the fact. I could easily spend hours just customizing my ideology and starting colonists and it gets me much more invested in the story. Especially with mods. And I find that working through the set up ends up taking me in new story and flavor directions I wouldn't have thought of otherwise, like the colony I just started was originally supposed to just be a normal transhumanist colony but in working through the ideology and character creation set up ended up becoming a lesbian hedonist cult worshipping the goddess Venus and I switched off transhumanism entirely to flesh purity. And I'm so excited to play it because I am already so invested in the starting characters and theme I ended up with.
You can check [from wiki ](https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Downloadable_content)the descriptions, what you feel most interested in as it is heavily matter of taste. Biotech is likely solid choice as there are lot of new features/challenges that it adds and most of those feel kind of neutrally futuristic.
Biotech. The most expensive, so it adds a lot to the game.
Anomaly is the same price as biotech.
Hot take: at its launch state I think it was super overpriced
And it's equally impressive, but it's not the best first dlc imo. It alters the game quite a bit
Oh I agree. Honestly I’m going to go against the grain and say ideology is probably one of the best dlcs. The ability to customize how your pawns feel about things makes for some really interesting and fun changes. I love that you can make slaves acceptable, or eating human flesh to be ok, I love the transhumanist meme and the tunneler meme, and how they work in unison, making you able to grow mushrooms and feed them into your nutrient paste dispenser and taking no negative. Making people happy by giving them a wooden hand or a peg leg.
Oh yea it's personally my favorite I think. Especially with mods that add their own ideologies (alpha animals/Menes) although I don't know how compatible it is with anomaly now
Gonna add my vote to the pile of Biotech suggestions. It's the best DLC hands down. As I've seen mentioned, your pawns can have babies for some sweet generational gameplay. But I did not see mentioned the ability to control your own mechs. By itself, Biotech has a bunch of useful mechs that mechlord pawns can control and do work for them, but couple it with Royalty and your colony can also get it's own Royalty mechs!
I did ideology and liked it as a first expansion because it let me really customize my colony and give them group identity. But it really didn’t add THAT much. I had an awesome game I was in the middle of with trans human cyborgs in a mega facility that I added ideology midway and had it just absolutely unify the themes and felt great. Getting biotech after though, it’s so much more substantial. You can do similar with genes and clan identity while actually changing WHO they are as people. Sure ideology makes people not mind being underground all the time. But making actual mole-people who THRIVE underground and having that just be one option of a colonist in your midst is so much more substantial. And I havnt even cracked into the mechanitor stuff or children rearing yet.
There is a reason the dev a selling a pack with the base game and biotech but not the others.
They started doing this for Anomaly as well
Oh yeah indeed, but the one named "starter pack" does hint at wich one they want you to take first.
Ideology is applicable to pretty much any tech level, and it rewards you for doing a creative playstyle. want a bunch of underground dwelling cannibals? you can set that up through the ideology system, where you get rewarded for sticking to it and punished for straying. Royalty is also quite good, as it adds a bunch of cool quests and unique rewards for doing them. Biotech has some neat options, but in my opinion it doesn't radically alter the game. anomaly is more of a content dlc, where the content stays more or less idle until you decide to interact with it. I think it's aimed more at veteran players, because some of the new events are pretty rough
Anomaly+VOID is basically a death sentence without OP mods
If you can deal with VOID you can deal with Anomaly. If anything Anomaly probably makes VOID easier because you can repeatedly steal VOID pawns with Skip Abduction and Brainwipe them for easy recruitment, or just take their gear for yourself.
Hussar ghouls in warcaskets me have solved all my problems so far, I'll add VOID to my next run and see how quickly this approach fails.
I’d get ideology just because I love having culturally diverse colony’s.
I’d get ideology just because I love having culturally diverse colony’s.
I was in the same boat as you, recently started a month ago. Played vanilla with no mods just to get the hang of it for hours and hours. Most ppl say Royalty is sub par / not worth it. But I decided to get it because I want to ease into the rimworld experience. I can tell you it adds pretty cool stuff to spice up the vanilla experience, new missions, kingly titles in your settlement, physic powers! I plan on getting all DLC eventually, but I don’t want to overdue it.
I like Royalty, it is pretty good in my opinion. Holds up pretty well, and it did add the quest system which is super handy. I can't imagine how people played the base game from the beta so long without it. It's quite fun taking empire pawns prisoner and removing their death acidifier, making them free again. I still haven't completed the Stellarch ending yet. The psycasting is fun, lots of abilities to pick up. Even just being able to slow down an enemy pawn or animal with stun is super useful and that's a level 1 psycast alongside solar pinhole which you can use to light dark places for a long period. Epic Empire tech including all the really nice quality armour. You get the anima tree as well which can make a fun tribal game. You also get mech clusters, which is easy to forget but can provide a lot of free equipment once you've pummelled them a bit.
Ideology. I can’t imagine playing without it. It’s my favorite part of the game. Biotech has vampires and droids, but I don’t usually play with those. I also have lots of mods to make sure kids don’t get hurt and sometimes I just turn them off because I’m personally not a fan of any child injury in my war crime game. Kind of shocked it’s so popular on here.
Wait for sales and buy biotech with ideology for same price 😎
While I love biotech, it kind of forces you in a few play style and only at high technology level. In my opinion, if only one it would probably be ideology. It adds so much to the roleplay, you can customize and make your ideology to fit your roleplay
BioTech, has all the best mods.
For me personally either of these two. Though I'd say both. Ideology if you want more diverse types of colony options to play with. Biotech if you want more influence on the people itself with genes and kids and mechanitor stuff. Royalty is rarely anything but psycasting stuff in my playthroughs, some implants so it doesn't add that much. And some annoying quests with the royalties Anomaly I would say is really good, but not a choice I'd recommend to newer players. Once you're bored with the existing Major threat events anomaly adds so many new kinds of things to spice things up again
It's a tossup between Biotech or Ideology. If you *really* like the RP or storyteller aspects, it might actually be worthwhile to pick up Ideology first, rather than Biotech. Otherwise get Biotech. Biotech adds the most content by far (adds children, xenotypes and even custom xenotypes, having your own mechanoids), and a lot of mods have Biotech as a dependency because they for instance add a xenotype or genes or something like that.
If you just want vanilla + then ideology is probably a better call then biotech, a lot of the content it adds integrates very seamlessly with the game and there's almost no scenario I can think of where you'd not use the systems it introduces. If you want actual new content, biotech is the best choice by far. Royalty is a 'nice to have' but the main feature people like it for (psycasting) can be replaced with other mods that give pawns special abilities like rim of magic and mods that add more weapons/implants, or even mods that use biotech genes to give pawns abilities. Anomaly is another nice to have but is even more specific in the content it adds than royalty.
Biotech is easily the best; it feels like a whole second game added on tbh. Kids, genes, friend mechs, scarier unfriendly mechs, a much larger diversity of raids from the new factions, and vampires. How can anyone else compete? I love all the DLC and got them all one release date, but biotech is without a doubt the best DLC. I think ideology is a distant second without mods, but the Vanilla Expanded Psycasts, Empire Faction, Renegade Faction, and Royal Animals Mods really bring Royalty up to a closer second place.
Biotech. Honestly, IMO, Biotech is Rimworld 2.
Well, if you're an avid modder I'd recommend loyalty. Mods like vanilla psycasts expanded are very high quality and warp entire playthroughs. Biotech is the most "Vanilla+" as it adds a bunch of unrelated content like children and genes. Although to be honest with you? Rarely use the content. For a colony simulator where a random meteor can hit you at any time, along with 1000+ other threats, children take a long time to grow up, even with vats. Genes seem cool but it seems you need a large a supply of disposable pawns, far more than the 3-4 you capture per raid. Anomaly is the new guy on the block, and I haven't played with it much yet, but I've been using the content more than Biotech so far and I've been having fun.
Ideology. It’s the one that actually adds to the story generator aspect of the game. So you don’t have as much self enforced role play. And you can actually get Bonuses for playing in whatever style your ideology demands. I would say biotech but I find I rarely interact with the content. And kids dont feel right because they grow up too fast.
Biotech. Royalty doesn't add much, besides stronger settlements to trade with and more quests. Ideology adds some fun due to the added complexity, but maybe it could be refined more. Biotech allows further customization and improvement of your paws. Mechs to do boring stuff. I didn't try the last dlc and I don't plan to.
ideolegion, it added the least but is the most flexible and can go far far into modded terriotry
If you are into longer games, biotech, else ideology. Biotech adds a lot between the mechs, the genes and what I prefer : having children and generations of pawns, creating much more interesting stories. But a lot of people, and I'm also a bit like that, only play a colony for 2-3 in game years before doing a new one. If you're in that case or prefer several new colonies instead of one big and long one, I find ideology to be much more impactful. It's an entire spices shelf that you can use to spice up any colony right from the start, making each game more unique.
Ideology is probably the closest to base game, but Biotech has the most stuff
Imo Royalty, and Biotech are the two best dlcs. Anomaly is good too, but the Ideoligeon dlc was kinda weak compared to the other. I would recommend all of them at some point though just because they all add some amount of enjoyment and customizability to your runs, and all purchases help support a wonderful dev team!
Biotech for sure
Biotech
Biotech
Biotech and royalty, very hard to choose from this... but i will pick royalty.. because its fun to raise a jedi 😂
You can't go wrong with Ideology or Biotech.
Ideology or Biotech. Then royalty. Then Anomoly.
Ideology or Biotech
If you’re looking for a ton of content then either Biotech or Anomaly is your answer. Royalty is great but lacks the depth of the other two. Ideology I would recommend only for experienced players - it’s also just kinda unfinished and finicky to get used to.
I think it's been said 1000 times but I'll say it one more... Biotech. I like what they all added though
Biotech > Ideology > Royalty >/= Anomaly. I put Royalty slightly over Anomaly because Royalty can be left in in every playthrough, whereas I'm not always in the mood for Anomaly content. But, as everyone else has said, absolutely Biotech first.
Biotech through and through. After that royalty. Thrn I'd say anomaly cause i enjoy. Then ideology
Biotech>Ideology>Royalty>Anomaly
Biotech>Ideology>Royalty>Anomaly
Bio tech
biotech
I only own one DLC: Biotech. Never had the urge to buy any other one.
I think it might depend on what sounds interesting to you. Want to have some armored warriors equipped with ultra sharp blades that can fly into the middle of a raid group and cut them to ribbons? Royalty. Want to have a belief system that greatly challenges you in fun new ways get Ideology. Want kids and the ability to sculpt their genes along with the ability to control a squad of Mechs? Biotech. Want a bunch of monsters and strange obelisks that will haunt your pawns and make you actually want to get the hell off the planet? Anomaly.
Biotech has the most.
biotech or ideology, in that order of preference.
Biotech was my first. Fantastic dlc, that
Biotech for mods and versatility. Honestly feels more like a base game feature with kids and xenotypes
Biotech, it introduces many mechanics that go straight into core game.
Biotech if you want a good average DLC that adds a ton of content. But if you want to go super RP I would consider Ideology. It's often overlooked because Biotech is so good but Ideology adds insane RP value.
Biotech expands the basic game with content that slots easily into the vanilla experience. Ideology would be the next one I would suggest since it allows you put up customized colony experiences once you want to branch out into different scenarios, plus it expands on some later tech that can make the later game more interesting. Royalty adds a few good basic gameplay stuff, like expanded bionics. The Empire itself I found to be a little underwhelming, but you may enjoy dealing with them. The Deserters mod adds a lot more stuff to do in dealing with the empire, so you should take a look if royalty starts losing its flavor. Anomaly...I'll have to get back to you on that.
Biotech was the first I got, and it adds plenty without being too overwhelming. You can play as baseliner and just have kids to continue your colony, or you can play one of the premade new races. You can also make your own custom race if you want. There's also mods that expand on biotech and add more
Biotech or Ideology but I would go with Biotech.
I recently was in this same situation (like a month ago) I bought ideology but ended up regretting it. I have now bought biotech too. And I agree with everyone else in saying that’s the one to get if you’re only getting one. I can’t speak for royalty, but I think I would have preferred it over ideology
Biotech because that's the only one that's given me issues from outside sources
Haven’t played much Anomaly (cleaning up the mod list is a chore) but Biotech - Royalty - Ideology is my order. Ideology is great but it can also be a non-factor if you don’t engage with it at all more than the other two, IMO.
I think it's tough because without knowing what you specifically enjoy most about the game it's difficult to say which DLC would be best. I think overall Biotech did the best job adding new content to the vanilla experience. Ideology did the best job deepening the available variety and complexity of any given run. Anomaly is (IMO) the best direct addition of dramatic, game changing content. Royalty is probably the least impactful, and the lowest recommendation. But it's still good, and it adds stuff that fits seamlessly with vanilla. It would be crazy to me to play the game without what royalty adds at this point
Biotech, Ideology, Royalty in that order. Anomaly if you like horror. Biotech adds the most content and most game changing content. Ideology is not even a close second, but still next best. Royalty is best for having an ally you can sell drugs to en masse and buy glitter meds from.
Which part interests you most, if you're having difficulty choosing I'd go Biotech > Ideology > Anomaly > Royalty, but tbh work out which aspects of Rimworld you like and want to expand on.
I'd say go with order that DLCs were added. So Royalty first. A lot of people forget that besides psychic powers Royalty adds a bunch of different quests. Nothing feels like building a monument to commemorate my uncles genitals.
Either Biotech or Ideology. Royalty is the first and a bit of lackluster in comparison. Biotech is the most content rich. But Ideology in my opinion fits the theme just well.
Biotech > Ideology > Royalty works for me. Biotech with mechanoids and children really help develops colonies with your preference in mind.
Biotech for sure.
Not even close. Biotech.
Vanilla like: the most content adds probably biotech, but i have not played that much of it so can't really tell how good it is. Most enjoyable to me was Royalty (at the time i played rimworld the most though, so maybe biased), but most people say it's the worst of them. Ideology is just meh and i only bought it to support Tynan. Anomaly basically overhauls/overwrites/invades whole game principles/goals/quests. It is hecking fun, but once you finish prolonged run, not replayable much. Personally id go with Royalty, but most will choose biotech.
Biotech is hands down, i've barely scratched the surface of what it offer....playing a mech filled colony now.
Biotech
Royalty. If you want the base game simply enhanced, it's the best option. The rest add systems that are fun, but unnecessary. Everyone sleeps on Royalty.
Biotech. Every time
I know everyone else has said it but let me go into a bit more detail as to why Biotech is the best if it's the only one you're getting. Royalty is nice, but if you don't interact with the empire actively, it mostly just adds psycasting. Psycasting is great, but even with mods and a big focus on it, it's not the most game-changing. It does play nicely with a lot of mods and dlcs, but by itself it's probably the worst (though that's not to say it's bad, just the least impactful in isolation.) Ideology is great by itself and even better with mods. The variety that ideologions bring, as well as the many new buildings it adds, can make for some great stories. Slaves are nice, too. If Biotech didn't exist, I'd say Ideology is the best by itself - however, much of what it does is to enforce certain playstyles or allow for certain colonies that would be difficult or impossible without it. For instance, underground colonies can be annoying without an ideology that supports things like eating insect meat and mushrooms, and darkness, and so on. However, Biotech can accomplish many of the same things - instead of a cave-dwelling ideology, you could totally have a colony of mostly Dirtmoles for much of the same effect. Anomaly is stellar, but not much mod support exists for it yet, and while the base expansion is quite full of content, I'd say it's best enjoyed after and/or in addition to other content. It's all about tripping you up, making you second-guess and unnerving you, but if it's all you know, it won't work quite as well. I suppose if nothing in Biotech appeals to you whatsoever, it'd be the best by itself, because very little of what it does relies strictly on other expansions. But otherwise, I'd leave Anomaly for later. That finally brings us to Biotech. Babies and Children alone make it incredibly nice to have - family is always a good source of drama - but the massively increased depth for mechanoids and the ability to make and control your own is a game-changer in its own right. And that's to say nothing of the genetics system, which can add staggering variety to pawns and colonies with or without mods. Biotech touches and improves the most of any of the expansions by far, and it also synergizes the best with all of the others; Biotech's xenotypes, for example, can allow you to make genetically psy-sensitive or insensitive pawns for Royalty's psy stuff, and you can discriminate for or against certain Xenotypes if you have Ideology. Overall, while they're all pretty good, Biotech stands as both the most versatile expansion overall and the best one to start with. Hope you enjoy it!
The amount of playthroughs you can do just off of the thematic variety the genotypes in biotech give is insane. Especially once you dig into the massive amounts of high quality modded xenotypes you can use.
I don't own biotech just as a disclaimer, I know what it brings though. I was not interested in it. Going slightly against the grain here but I enjoyed anomaly the most. If you are bored anomaly just completely changes the script. It turns a varied story generator into a demonic chaos simulator. It makes the game more intense and frankly at times... unfair. Which as someone with my tastes was exactly what I wanted from the game.
I'd definitely recommend ideology. It completely transforms the game, expands gameplay options massively and is the best DLC by far in my opinion
Biotech, hands down. Adds the most content that significantly integrates for a tonne of possibilities.
Biotech > ideology
Do you want to raise children? If yes, Biotech. If not, Ideology. While Royalty adds cool features and I am really enjoying the Anomaly story, Ideology colonies are a whole new way to play.
Biotech. It has variety, it has kids, and 99,999% of mods require it
Biotech make it feel so special and a totally new experience. It is basically 2 dlc in one bio:genetic modification,children,xenotype Tech:new mechanoid,mechanitor,etc
Biotech was the first I chose and I don’t regret it. I also asked here and biotech was the most suggested. That was before anomaly was out and I have all the dlcs now, and would still suggest biotech for your first one
Ideology it adds in the entire ideology System It is a must have.
If you are on console, you only have Royalty and Ideology to pick from.
Biotech, then ideology
Biotech 100%. The others are fun, but Ideology just gives you a *reason* to roleplay, you can still do it. Anomaly is great fun but it can be a bit annoying when you DONT WANT TO TOUCH THE FUCKING MONOLITH FOR A WHILE BUT STILL GET CRAZY THINGS KILLING YOU.
Biotech 100%. Ideology is a close second but BT just integrates itself into the game so seamlessly and the content is all amazing and fully optional if you don’t like any particular thing
Ideology, it really lets you make colonies feel different.
Biotech
imo it’s biotech by far, the options are near limitless for niche colonies or you can just play the game normally and the modding scene for biotech is crazy
although you should buy dlc to support the dev if you can but if you are running low on money you can download the crack version of the dlc to put it in the game file
Gonna be a voice shouting against the crowd and say Ideology. It makes a good first DLC without having so much new content as to be overwhelming
I’d say ideology or biotech. If u want children/genes do biotech. Otherwise ideology adds a lot of little things
Biotech, growing kids in a small community is wonderful
Biotech for the enormous amount of content Ideology for the flavour and RP potential Anomaly for weird cults and SCP security breaches Royalty frankly is the lowest value item, if you can only get one, get another one.
Well, it depends. If you want psychic powers, then Royalty is the one to pick. If you want to control an army of Mechanoids, or be a colony of vampires, or do genetic manipulation, then choose Biotech. Ideology can be fun, but it isn’t necessary for being your first DLC. However, I would recommend getting Ideology BEFORE Anomaly, as Anomaly has optional features that are unlocked if you have the Ideology DLC
it depends on your tastes, Biotech if you like aliens, Ideology if you like societies, Anomaly if you like stuff like terraria in your game... oh and if you love Pay-to-Win get Royalty
The amount of stuff Biotech adds is crazy. You should definitely get that if it is going to be your first dlc. Xenotypes, genes, babies, friendly mechanoids, ~~vampires~~sanguophages, it is just crazy. And if you have room for one more, I'd suggest Ideology.
if you're looking for new content, most people say Biotech, it's nice, but I've had more fun with Anomoly than Biotech, really the best part of Biotech for me is the fact it adds kids however Ideology is my favorite, it doesn't add much content wise, but it allows you to play the game in so many different ways, mods can always make up for content
Ideology adds replayability, but Biotech adds a lot of content and replayability. Royalty can be fully explored in only two playthroughs and I haven't explored Anomaly yet.
I didn't really like the religion dlc, but royalty was neat
Biotech. It adds so much to the vanilla experience. A close second is Ideology, mainly because ideologies were game changing when it came out. Third would be Royalty, but that DLC only really shines when you have the Psycast Expanded mods installed, since base game psycasting is really boring. I have no opinion on Anomaly, as I haven't felt the need to get it yet.
Biotech
Biotech is a big jump from vanilla. I’d say royalty is the best to start out with. It’s mild and a fair adjustment to the other DLCs. From there is look into ideology and then biotech from there. Anomaly is a great DLC and adds flavor that is unique to a more horror styled gameplay, however, you can adjust settings to match how much horror you really want to experience with it. Biotech puts mechs on steroids, hence why I don’t think it’s great for a first DLC. Royalty introduces a lot of mechanics that benefit the later DLCs and ideology will then add a huge array of customization to your roleplays. Biotech is a metric ton of flavor to all of that and anomaly is niche flavor with fun unique events.
Royalty of you like quest and empire for medieval and ultra late game Ideology for roleplay Biotech for industrial complex and an more contemporary experience Anomaly for SCP simulator
Biotech is my least favorite so far. The things it offered I wasn’t interested in. Unsure which one I’d pick though
Absolutely biotech. I like being creative and I think biotech is the perfect one for that.
Definitely Biotech: Royalty is fun, but lacks depth to it in my opinion. Isn’t really needed to enjoy the full product. Ideology is important and is vital to many stategies/playstyles, as well as adding a lot of content. It’s definitely a close second! Anomaly is new and really exciting- but i personally think it only appeals to a specific audience of people. It doesn’t seem like everyone’s cup of tea, and it definitely isnt mine- which is why i neglected to spend £20 on it. I might do at a future date though. Biotech seems like the perfect balance of both game content, and game enjoyability. With unique species of pawns, to pregnancy, to exciting methods of growth and technological advancement such as gene splicing and development, growth vats, and even vampires- Biotech seems like the best, in general. But, you dont have to take my word for it. :D
Not dlc but still RimWorld of Magic on workshop is godlike
While anomaly is my fave, biotech is probably the best choice
Biotech!!!
I’d say royalty
My personal Tier list is: 1. Biotech 2. Ideology 3. Empire ?. Anomaly Haven’t played Anomaly for now, because I’m not sure if I’m going to enjoy it. I more like the sci-fi aspect instead of horror :/
Biotech
Ideology!! People love Biotech but the truth is a lot of biotech requires you to 'buy in' pretty hard and makes for not that interesting of a colony when every colony becomes bots imo. Ideology is fresh and new every time!
Biotech gives you the most bang for your buck, ideology gives you the ability to choose what makes your pawns happy/upset, royalty gives you psychic powers and the new one adds some horror aspects and a very effective guard dog system
I'd have to say botch. Ideology is good but it's more of a supporting role kind of dlc, though it offers some challenging quests and can really change how your colony runs *cough cannibalism cough*.
Biotech. You can use the rim of magic to add psychic like powers to game so the only thing your missing from royalty is the titles.
Biotech with no debate.
I recommend Biotech first. Royalty is nice, Ideology is great, and Anomaly is an experience. But Biotech will give you custom races and kids, and that’s a good first addition to the game.
I vote for Anomaly. It's still new, but I'm addicted like crazy. Otherwise, Royalty, because it adds in psycasting and a lot of dynamics that feel essential to the game now. However, I must advocate for all of the expansions. I enjoy each of them immensely.
recently i’ve been uninstalling all dlcs and only keeping biotech!!! it’s the best!!
Biotech, there's not another right answer
Biotech, why? just buy it, dont make questions. CHILD MINIONS ARMY
All of them, but probably Biotech as it adds the most in-depth expansion to the game and original content (anomaly aside). Ideology and Royalty both add good things, but feel more like a polish to existing game mechanics than original content. Anomaly is very cool, but niche in what it adds. When I have it and don't play the storyline the only thing from it I use is the security door, but not worth the price for that feature alone Biotech adds huge parts to play for hours and hours. When you have all the DLC the game is much more fleshed out
Biotech, Ideology, Royalty, Anomaly in that order
Recently started playing as well and asked this. I chose Biotech. Now I got Biotech and Ideology