Even though my a$$ is getting kicked the 4th time now, I'm trying to enjoy the game without any mods and see what the developers were trying to pass on as a complete game. Game + mods = is not the way the developers intended to play it. The game should be playable and enjoyable without any mods or DLC.
Before patch 9, the game was just a steamrollin' experience and people exploited the unresponsive AI, but now the AI is given a cheat upgrade to make up for its incompetence from earlier stages.
Even though it's hard to frustrate me with anything, I think the vanilla game is sort of hanging on that thin red line of whether it's frustrating or enjoyable, but people with less patience, the game probably falls on the frustrating experience, rather than enjoyable, even if everything works the way the developers intended. Some people just don't want mods, because truth to be told, many mods are cheating (as I tried out some of them) and modifying certain aspects to a point, that it will have unwelcome side effects or it's more of an exploit than a mod. (in this category- falls any mod that modifies the turns/year; ancillaries and traits;unit strengths and prices; faction overhauls; map overhauls;game flow overhauls; -so basically 90% of all mods.)
My philosophy in this regard, a full game, that has to depend on mods to be enjoyable and playable is not a full game.