I also got the AE version on Steam sale and closed the game during the intro dragon attack. No way can I stand playing the game unmodded. Endured several Youtube tutorial videos and I didn't really understand them, but I powered through with MO2, SKSE, FNIS, Bodyslide etc. The community isn't lying when they say that modding is half the fun once you kinda get the gist of what to do, since there are a lot of tools that helps.
Weeks later, I was watching Youtube videos and I don't recognize the places shown, such as Whiterun because there's a lot of vast plains but my Skyrim has a lot of trees instead. I also don't recognize vanilla NPCs since my NPCs have been beautified. Default Serana makes me want to fork my eyes.
Anyway, I learned that before you start modding, it might be good to have the foundation of mods that is required by other mods later on: