I've no idea what combination of things are going wrong for you guys, a lot has changed since the Steam version. There has been a lot of work on cultures and I've got all of the visual DLC which has been used to some degree to make a bit of a distinction between the various cultures. I'm also not sure how this would work with any other mods either, so they may cause some undesired effects.
There's an obvious, if time-consuming, way to test if absent DLC is causing any options—just turn it off one by one and see if the game breaks. I get that time-consuming is probably a deal-breaker at the moment, but it's technically an option.
Of course, if none of the cosmetic DLC causes any obvious game-breaking stuff, you've wasted all that time. But hey, at least you would have followed the best advice a random guy with no relevant modding experience can provide!
Why did I make this post again? Oh yeah, I like doing whatever theoretically helpful thing I can, but try not to seem arrogant about it.
...but in case this is actually a good idea, I have all the major DLCs except Monks and Mystics, all the unit packs except the Iberian one, all the portrait packs except Iberia and Early Western/Eastern, all the dynasty shield packs except Charlemagne, all the "other content," about half the music, and none of the "content packs". Which is a lot more cosmetic DLC than I remember buying...must have been a bundle. Or multiple bundles.