I have been playing RimWorld for quite a long time. And at the beginning, I wasn’t only playing it vanilla, but playing the beginning a lot. That’s because I started not just in the beta, but in the alpha, so my runs were being made unplayable pretty quickly as updates happened. Later on, I started adding mods, and it brought me to where I am now.

Now, most of the mods I use aren’t very game-changing, and generally are just for ease of use. The only ones that really change the game are one that stop zzsts from happening (worst event ever), and a couple different ones that let you build your starting colonists better. Still, when I heard about the new DLC, Odyssey, I decided I was going to start plain (though still running the first three DLCs). And…it was a bit tough. Finding starting colonists can be a bit of a grind, and I am on my fourth run after failing it. My previous was actually pretty good, at least for the people, but I’d done it on a biome that I’d never played before, and that led to failure.

Before all this, I’d tried something else new, by playing a tribal run. It wasn’t the first time, but it had been a long time since I’d done it, and my first attempt was probably too early in the game for me. This time though, it was a really good learning experience, especially in things like keeping food without refrigeration and defending without high-class weapons. My vanilla runs are doing the same. Without my mods that cut the micro-management, I’m relearning a lot of that micro-management. Is the micro a good thing? I don’t know, but I do know that it’s helping me out a lot. Even though I’ve never gotten far enough in any of these 1.6 runs to actually have the effect of the new update, I feel like I’ve leaned a lot more than if I had just kept playing the way I was before.

I’m not going to cut out the mods. I’m not even saying they’re bad, whether they straight up make the game easier or simply cut out the micro-management. But whatever the game, if you play with a different starting condition, or cut some or all mods, or do anything to change the game in some way, it’s a great way to learn.

A stable version of RimWorld 1.6, along with the new DLC Odyssey, is being released July 11, tomorrow if you’re reading this the day it comes out. What do you think of mods? Game changing? Difficulty learning? Tell us in the comments below, or on Facebook!