Civ V Must have DLC??

I do not know about DLC.

But from what I have heard from others who have played the game, generally you will need to download mods to make the game better and/or more enjoyable if you are familiar with the earlier games of the series.

The DLC (except the newest one) goes 50-75% off all the time.

I hear Brave New World is a must get.

Get the Gold Upgrade.

gods & kings and brave new world are the two major expansions, both of which flesh out the game quite nicely. gods & kings adds religion and spies, and brave new world overhauls cultural victories, adds archaeology and a world congress. The rest of the DLC is nice, but doesn't add much outside of more playable civs and wonders.

Last week I got from Steam the Gold upgrade (was on sale for 2.50), and it contains 11 DLCs including Gods & Kings.
It does NOT include only 'Brave New World' and 'Wonders of the Ancient World Scenario Pack' (and a dlc released today).

Wait for sale and the DLC pack + Gods and Kings will go for 2,50€. Brave New World is very good too so I would buy that one too when it's on sale.

for starters single player you need none. Then if you like a game you may consider buying GOTY upgrade (which is quite cheap in trading) to try different rulers, maps etc. Then after this You may buy Brave New World Expansion.

There is no need to start qwith all the stuff from start if you don't know if you will like the game, and even if you do, for starters you will get enoough content. Expand when you get bored and want to try new stuff ;)

Buy Brave New World. If you really like the game you may also want to upgrade to GOTY edition. Don't bother buying Gods and Kings - if you get Brave New World you'll get everything included in it apart from the civs.

No

Gods & Kings definitly adds something, not sure about Brave New World since it wasn't on a good-enough-for-me sale yet. The mini DLCs can be picked up with spare credit at sale.

Excluding the major expansions, The ancient wonders dlc is pretty clutch. I love the wonders that they include

The major, expensive DLC is expansion material. They change the game in very significant ways - I do not recommend buying it until you're familiar with the gameplay of the base game.

Go to the page for the main game, get the gold one, it's all but 1 dlc (brave new world) for 20 bucks.

Or wait til christmas and it'll probably go onsale for 5 bucks to upgrade to the gold version.

Only gold edition

Civ has gone 75% off before you mighttttttt as well wait, it'll definitely happen again this winter and you'll save quite a bit by doing so

I think Gods & Kings is a must-have. The religions, city-states & expanded diplomacy add so much to the game - it feels kind of crippled to play without it. (Especially compared to other editions of Civ as well)

Gold Upgrade or Brave New World, depends on what you expect (1st = more civs 2nd = advanced gameplay)

g&K and BNW, but bnw is fairly new so is still not cheap.
If you are concerned about the extra dough, you can always play a couple of match on vanilla, while you wait for a sale, and then grab the expansions on the cheap. If you are gonna be replaying civ, you definetly want the expansions, but at first, when you are discovering things, you can play without them as you still have lots to finds out about the game anyway.
About g&K, the gold upgrade which includes it is very cheap when on sale.
There's probably gonna be a "complete upgrade" at the end which will include all dlc, but nobody knows when that will come and how much more dlc will there be. There is a new map dlc released this week which is not included in gold edition afaik, but is not 'necessary'.

If your version is gold, then you already have Gods n Kings.
If not here's what I recommend:
Play vanilla for 30 hours, then get Gods n Kings.
Then after playing GnK for 10 hrs (not THAT much bigger) get Brave New World (changes the game significantly).
Map DLCs: not recommended, you're probably going to play random seeds only
Civs DLCS: Personally, I think only nebuchadnezzar and korea are worth a shot, the rest is rather boring to play.

so yeah, the expensive ones are the best (not big surprise)

wait for a sale and buy the upgrade to gold edition for $5.

that's worth it, in my opinion

You can get the gold upgrade 75% during holiday sale has all but most recent dlc.

Like everyone else said, Gold Upgrade. Every DLC is worth it honestly. I have 170 hours in Civ V and I have so many characters to play with still. And when they added Gods & Kings it added a lot to the game, some parts better than others. Religion is pretty useful. Spies I actually turned off, because I felt they were just a waste of time to manage. Brave New World really changed things up, but I'm finding it hard to win a scientific victory, just because I get diplomatic so easily before I can build my rocket.