No I never use mods, because you know , they disabled achievements with mods, I woud use but I prefer Original and clean stuff usually for my official games .
I Really think that the next Rome game shoudl really follow the same World pattern of the others , also because Rome was not isolated in that period as many might erroneously think , they had commerces, they traveled, Roman embassy arrived even in China , Roman exploers crossed Africa in search of the Nile source streams, they crossed the deserts , reached far shores oc Scandinavia and may be some say even in America, as might have equally done other cultures as well from Phoenicians to Chineese...
And on top of all that in America and Africa there where a lot of interesting cultures developing at the same time as well wich would be optimal for new what if scenarios !