What is all the fuss on modding about?

[Edi]

It depends on your taste, I would say. Some people like certain mods because they alter the thematics of some specific nation more to their liking, or add something to the game that was not there previously. Some mods seek to address certain balance issues, but these should be approached with extreme caution. Often it is a question of the modmaker not knowing what to do when faced with something, so he or she thought it was "unbalanced".

I'd be willing to play MP with some mods (haven't tried many, but I've seen enough positive feedback for some mods). One very good mod is Zen's recent Concept Balance mod, because it only affects pretenders, not the nations, and it makes more pretenders attractive for MP purposes (and in SP).

Thing is, if you've played Dominions extensively and know the ins and outs of different strategies for different nations, odds are you will be able to tell what effect a particular mod will have on a game, or at least make a relatively accurate educated guesstimate.

You should take some time to look at the mod specifics before using a mod in a game, and perhaps experiment a little with some short SP games that you can abandon, as and if your time constraints allow.

In MP it also depends on what kind of game you're playing. With some friends, I could very well play co-ops on a large map with victory by provinces and using quick turns, to test out things. Or in sandbox play. But for competitive take no prisoners games, mods are not necessarily good unless everyone agrees to them in advance and knows what they are committing to.

Edi