Is NV too much NCR-Sided?

Why don't you go to the US Marines and tell them about the virtues of living in a non-democratic country?
First of all I never said I hate deomocracy I quite like, its just pretty impractical for the falloout universe. The point I was trying to make is the British Empire destroyed plenty of contries from Ireland to India. Modern day America might not be perfect but is far more humane.
 
Quagmire69 said:
Why don't you go to the US Marines and tell them about the virtues of living in a non-democratic country?
First of all I never said I hate deomocracy I quite like, its just pretty impractical for the falloout universe. The point I was trying to make is the British Empire destroyed plenty of contries from Ireland to India. Modern day America might not be perfect but is far more humane.

Actually it is quite practical. If you have all the people selecting where the resources go, better resource management. If you have one person saying where the resource goes than it is a biased opinion of where it should go, and therefore not going to benefit the group as much.
 
^Both would be biased.
The NCR citizens live a lot better than Legion civilians and average wastelanders, mostly because they are organized and try to ally with other organizations peacefully (sometimes it doesn't work, Vault city) and try to make the most out of the allaince instead of destroying them to make them apply to their rules, the Legion could create order but progress would be very slow, if possible at all.
 
Quagmire69 said:
Why don't you go to the US Marines and tell them about the virtues of living in a non-democratic country?
First of all I never said I hate deomocracy I quite like, its just pretty impractical for the falloout universe. The point I was trying to make is the British Empire destroyed plenty of contries from Ireland to India. Modern day America might not be perfect but is far more humane.

Ireland might be bad right now (I spent a part of my honeymoon in Dublin, a lot of the locals were very depressed for some reason :(. But India only profited by the British owning us for a bit. The could have been less brutal about it sure, but now India is set to become a global superpower thanks in part of the British teaching us a lot about western civilization.
 
Walpknut said:
try to ally with other organizations peacefully

Like that time they signed a perfectly fair treaty with House and then attempted to assassinate him purely out of greed and that other time they allied with a crime lord to hire mercenaries to attack Vault City.

I definitely don't support the Legion, but I don't see how NCR as any legitimate claim to Vegas and the surrounding areas or how Vegas would be better under their rule as opposed to independent city-state whether ruled by House or not.
 
Sabirah said:
Ireland might be bad right now (I spent a part of my honeymoon in Dublin, a lot of the locals were very depressed for some reason :(. But India only profited by the British owning us for a bit. The could have been less brutal about it sure, but now India is set to become a global superpower thanks in part of the British teaching us a lot about western civilization.
I can only honestly reply to this with a facepalm.

/facepalm
 
Nalano said:
Sabirah said:
Ireland might be bad right now (I spent a part of my honeymoon in Dublin, a lot of the locals were very depressed for some reason :(. But India only profited by the British owning us for a bit. The could have been less brutal about it sure, but now India is set to become a global superpower thanks in part of the British teaching us a lot about western civilization.
I can only honestly reply to this with a facepalm.

/facepalm

:(

What did I say that was bad?
 
Like that time they signed a perfectly fair treaty with House and then attempted to assassinate him purely out of greed and that other time they allied with a crime lord to hire mercenaries to attack Vault City.

I definitely don't support the Legion, but I don't see how NCR as any legitimate claim to Vegas and the surrounding areas or how Vegas would be better under their rule as opposed to independent city-state whether ruled by House or not.

Perfectly fair? House does not hide that the treaty favors him; the obligation to allow troopers to go into Vegas sucks caps dry away from NCR, not to mention having the Strip close to a warzone doesn't do much for discipline, and the NCR defends the power that runs his casinos with their lives. He knows that NCR must deal with him or risk a suicidal two-front war, and he makes the most out of it. They don't assassinate him purely out of greed; he is in the way of their expansion and development in the Mojave, not to mention the fact he contributes to weakening their forces on a crucial front (not just for the region, but for NCR itself). In fact, he is planning to attack them with his robot army from the start, so really nobody has any sort of moral high ground here. Vault City is a point, but I don't really mind since they were racist, slaving assholes

As for the legitimate claim to the region, nobody really has it imo. House is the one who saved it, yeah, but he didn't prove to be able to do much since he awoke. NCR are newcomers, but they have done much for the Mojave (farms, trade routes, not to mention protection from the gentleman over the Colorado). At some point one must choose whenever they support House or NCR, which are in my top choices for sure. I just prefer a democracy, flawed as it is, to a dictatorship, benevolent or not. Independent has too many unknowns (mainly Yes Man's future behavior and the Courier's ability to rule a nation) to have my support.
 
Sabirah said:
...now India is set to become a global superpower...

How do you measure the term "superpower" - is it by GDP, if that's the case then India isn't as rosy as you think...but it has improved greatly over the last 30 years.

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How about the Happy Planet Index - India seems a lot more happy than most developed nations. :) Superpower is a meaningless term, just ask our American friends.

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Gondos - joined: November 25, 2010.

Love you. Mah birthday :)

On a side note, I agree. Setting the game where the Legion would, kind of, take half of the map would be more fun, and challenging for the player (or easier, if he sides with the Legion).
 
This has been said multiple times in this thread but YES. The problem with New Vegas faction system is too much NCR and too little of other factions, specifically Legion, which leads to another problem - comparing places belonging to Legion (camps, fort, occupied Nelson) and missions they give you as opposed to those of NCR make the latter look like brave knights saving Mojave from bad Legion doods. So, because of Legion's scarcity on the map and their underdevelopment as a faction a typical player will ususally drift towards NCR.
 
ya the devs even said that they were rushed they had plans to make many new locations east of the hoover dam river in cesars territory.
so yes they were very rushed and did have WAY bigger plans for legion which i also heard.
 
Your really forced in NV to go NCR unless you want almost everyone to hate you. I am not a CL fan but I feel like they are on a good track as the old tech will run out and they live without it for the most part that being said I'm sure back in the main territory they have nicer areas. If the devs had more time the factions would be more shades of grey more than the good NCR vs the evil CL in the way Skyrim moved towards.
 
More shades of grey? More than they already WERE? Did you miss how AWESOME the Legion was? Yes, they look atrocious coming from the NCR perspective, but if you side with them, unless you yourself are playing some kind of vicious spawn of Satan, you'll be introduced to a very noble man, with a very righteous cause, and a brilliant mind to execute it with. About the one thing you can look at the Legion and say is "black" is their abundant usage of slavery, and oppression of women. Yet the Legion's only true FAULT is their lack of cohesion; they may be a singular unit right now- under Caesar -but when he dies, it could collapse, just like the NCR fell into its current state of widespread corruption after Tandi died.

The NCR, meanwhile, looks awful great to support- old world ideals, democracy, freedom, when it turns out they represent none of that. They aren't in the Mojave to spread freedom and civilize the wastes, but to claim resources they have no right to. The leadership you work for if you decide to side with them are dark, self-obsessed, and close-minded bigots; the only exception being Crocker, however his very position is uncertain BECAUSE he's the one fair-minded person in a leadership position of the NCR. The heyday of the NCR is decades past, meanwhile the heyday of the Legion has yet to be seen.

None of the main factions are black nor white, they're ALL shades of grey, and very, very murky shades, at that. Even if you're a paragon by the end of the game, your morally-superior guidance of the side you helped only shapes them to have the least degree of bad. It doesn't make the NCR's victory happiness and sunshine by any stretch.
 
I disagree with a few things you mention here, Snap, and let me tell you why.
SnapSlav said:
None of the main factions are black nor white, they're ALL shades of grey, and very, very murky shades, at that. Even if you're a paragon by the end of the game, your morally-superior guidance of the side you helped only shapes them to have the least degree of bad. It doesn't make the NCR's victory happiness and sunshine by any stretch.
NCR was presented well in the case of shades of grey, a sprawling republic choking on its own expansionism. So was House in terms of whether it's better to rebuild the world under authoritarian regime or allow people to decide for themselves. But Legion wasn't - you've got this impression of moral greyness when you first meet Vulpes in Nipton or the first time you can freely discuss something with Caesar. But the more Legion you see, the more you notice how poorly was that idea executed. Which is sad because the Legion had a potential of being an ultimately luddite, hardcore survivalist faction, a question whether it's better to abandon freedom for safety in the wastes, and in the end they turned out as typical bad guys, only slightly different in that manner than Enclave in F3.
SnapSlav said:
Yes, they look atrocious coming from the NCR perspective, but if you side with them, unless you yourself are playing some kind of vicious spawn of Satan, you'll be introduced to a very noble man, with a very righteous cause, and a brilliant mind to execute it with.
Caesar is all but noble. He's highly intelligent, cunning, with a vast knowledge of the past, human psychology and political processes, but despite all that he's merely a dictator who built his cult on a mix of fear and respect and carved his empire into a giantic camp for his nomadic army. In that matter he seems more like post-nuclear Hitler or Stalin, sending thousands to death for his delusional ambitions and excessive ego.
Another mistake Caesar makes is that he's firmly convinced capturing Vegas will diametrically change the Legion. While this may seem correct, he still needs some basis for this cultural change, or else Vegas will become another captured city, like Denver, which apparently was rather full of life if he had to send Lanius himself to conquer it, as the resistance was strong. So is Vegas - full of life and people who could face Legion in the battle, but if Legion already has cities the size of Denver and does nothing with it, what proof is there it won't be the same case with Vegas?
Little to none is known about Legion's cultural life, it's almost safe to assume there is none. Legion is a stiff formation based on discipline and military drill, with death penalties for those who fail to meet their expectations. Instead of wasting the potential of his soldiers, Caesar could turn his empire into a country with working economy: routes free of raiders and wasteland creatures attract merchants, perhaps even folks from NCR would emigrate to Legion's territory if it wasn't so bent on slavery. Let's look into the past: despite Timurid Empire being an all-conquering horde, their capital, Samarkand, was one of the most prestigious cities in the world, with rich economy and culture. Is there any city in Legion's territory that could serve as such Samarkand?
Caesar is not noble in that meaning he babbles how Legion will shape the future for the better of mankind, while not really giving two fucks about his own folk. Legion is an army of Caesar's own slaves and capturing Vegas would only be a stop at the further conquest, as he would turn his eyes towards California. Legion has to expand to survive, like every totalitarian ideology. Paradoxically, Caesar created Legion and is the main reason Legion will eventually fall, whether because of his death or because he will ultimately make it crush its teeth on another military target, like Hoover Dam and Vegas are.
 
You're basing most of those on real-world examples, rather than taking the in-game examples for what they're worth. It's the same as, like I already pointed out, looking at the Legion from an NCR-centric position. But taken from a neutral perspective, or from that of the Legion itself, you see it in completely different colors. On the one hand, it is spreading GENUINE civilization, security, safety, and futures to the territories that it collects.

What was Dogtown (Denver) before its Legion conquest? It was a pit where survival was harsh, and prosperity was a delusional fantasy. It was anything BUT a bustling metropolis, and was plentiful in "resources" only in the sense that because of how dangerous it was (like the Glow, but not due to radiation) there was precious salvage that was unobtainable. Did the Legion bring it to ruin? No. It wasn't specified what became of Dogtown, but its survivors were assimilated, which means they were given a better life. True, it meant going from a bleak life of uncertainty to a dogmatic (pun not intended) life of military conformity, which guaranteed your death on some unforeseen battlefield in murky future. But you can't ignore that it granted them a definitive improvement to their standard of living.

Caesar's "faith" in Vegas changing the Legion wasn't mistaken in any respect. For one thing, claiming the city was contingent entirely on TOTALLY besting the NCR, which itself would have involved changing the Legion. This was already in the works by the time of the Courier's involvement. The expulsion and replacement of Malpais (Graham) with Lanius was part of that process. The Legion's forces had to be versatile and tactically adaptive, unlike Graham's approach of brute force and overwhelming numbers. The Legion had to become BETTER than its adversaries, not just bigger or brawnier. (By contrast, the NCR's forces were doing the same thing, only in reverse. They won the first battle of Hoover Dam through strategy and tactics, thanks entirely to Chief Hanlon. Now, because of petty jealousy and blind desire for fame, Oliver has done everything in his power to subvert Hanlon's influence over the NCR's forces, with intent to win the next battle with zero strategy, and pure, overwhelming numbers and force... and astronomical trooper casualties. The NCR is regressing while the Legion is evolving.)

Secondly, Caesar didn't intend to just "claim" New Vegas like any other spoil of war that his Legion had already won. Vegas was going to become the Legion's capitol- "Its Rome", in his words -and they were going to change from a roving horde to a situated empire. Again, this would be physical, definitive change, not speculative. Another facet of this which might provoke further adaptation on the part of the Legion was the technological disparity between the resources of the city and the capabilities of the Legion. This would mean that, while not necessarily abandoning their "reliance on technology is cowardice and makes you weak" philosophy, as far as martial prowess is concerned, it would usher in a technological awakening period for the Legion with respect to their surroundings and their livelihoods. Their culture would change and advance, out of necessity.

You can pick apart Caesar in many ways, but you can't claim that he's delusional, or full of shit. He is a liar in the sense that he plays on the more gullible elements of his armies by creating a false mythology surrounding himself (that he is the son of Mars, and a demigod). However those with a firm understanding of the Legion, or those who simply knew him long enough, are well aware that he is a man, but a very capable one, and a remarkable leader (thus their following him). What would become of the Legion if you spread word that his background was all based on old books? Not much. The Legion had followed Caesar this whole way, not Caesar's image. They listened to him because he was brilliant and convincing. (Meanwhile, the very fabric of lies surrounding the NCR's presence in the Mojave is already causing it to buckling in on itself, due to widespread public unrest and discontent over their leadership.)

When Caesar talks about the philosophies of war, and the fundamental evolutions of societies on a dialectic level, he conveys the presence of a man with a vision and a purpose. He's not spinning words to win you over; that's what the threats and assassins are for. He knows what historically worked and what failed, on a societal scale, and he's taking all of that knowledge, and using it to shape the wasteland how he believes is its best course. He may be wrong, but he has TONS of knowledge and experience backing his convictions, not at all unlike Mr. House (they are the most alike of all the major characters of the game, if not the entire series).

The true faults of the Legion are with its lowest level troops. Men are granted privilege and women are forced into submission simply because the bottom circles of the Legion know no better. Might is right, to them. They have no vision, and their morality is essentially dictated to them. It's entirely true that many of their slaves were "given purpose" by the Legion, but that's not universal, and your everyday Legionary wouldn't know the difference, because that line of rhetoric is pounded into them from day one, not the meaning of it. Finally, the Legion WILL fall apart when Caesar dies. It doesn't matter where he steers them, so long as he draws breath, the Legion will unfaltering follow Caesar. This is good in that it unifies their purpose and they have unfailing cohesion, but it's bad (epic understatement) because that means Caesar's passing is akin to the death of the Legion, itself. All of the Legion's growth and advancements would grind to a total halt. Even if a new leader was appointed with minimal bloodshed, unless he was groomed by Caesar to carry on his vision, the Legion would still change in a way that's most likely a regression from the benefits of its current model. Again, this draws many parallels to the NCR after President Tandi's death.

Once you get right down to it, House's faults are simple, and easy to recognize. He's pragmatic to such a degree that even human life is a statistic to him. He's cold, yet really the best bet for the future of the region. NCR's faults are not as easy to spot, and if you don't pay attention to them, they look like a GREAT future for the Mojave, even though they're arguably the worst. But the Legion is just as mixed of a blessing as the NCR. They bring more than death and despair with their conquest, much like the Unity once offered. Does that make them right? Again, just as with the Unity, most like not. It's EASY to vilify the Legion because the whole Mojave is littered with ONLY NCR-centric propaganda (making Lanius out to be a brutal, savage boogeyman, yet when you meet him he's an honorable warrior who won't sacrifice his men's lives for a hollow victory) and you always have the "they're slavers, and slavery is bad!" argument to fall back on, but these are shallow reasons to blanket the entirety of the Legion as "not having shades of grey". Clearly they do. You're ignoring their accomplishments, their economic prosperity, their cultural richness, and the human lives they're built on when you just look at 2 things and say that the Legion were all bad guys. They're made out to LOOK like it, but that's all.
 
He is a liar in the sense that he plays on the more gullible elements of his armies by creating a false mythology surrounding himself

He is also a liar because he lies. For example to the Great Khans, Twisted Hairs and White Legs.
 
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