Played for ~100 hours, bought DLC subscription, overwhelmed by content, what should I pick for now?

As title, I have only completed one game as UNE (Ensign) and conquered the L-gate, other games have ended up in devastation or defeat so far. I have been reading the wikis and tutorials to get a better grasp of the game but there are too much content to explore (this is my first 4X game).

I keen towards hive-minded it feels like I'm actually the authority of the nation, are there any must have DLCs for these playthroughs or some to disable? Game does lag a lot at 2400+ year too, playing on Macbook M2.

Thanks a lot!

https://preview.redd.it/5gk580lhwgkg1.png?width=1040&format=png&auto=webp&s=ce094f6c1cab2c888575416d616efde93750bb53