At no point was children ever mentioned when I said gamblers, thieves, and prostitutes. The Legion does not kill children anyway.
There were two survivors in the town. Both were adults. No prisoners were taken. Do the math. The only reason we didn't see it was because of censorship.
To answer another post yes these incredibly selfish acts that help nobody but themselves do need to be punished.
And exactly what defines a selfish act? A prostitute offers a service, so does a casino, and this type of entertainment was old long before the game was set. Theives (which aren't inhabitants of the town, natch) are selfish, but burning a town due to them is chatic evil stupidity at best. Anyway, the reason Nipton was burned was because ut created a wanted effecft of terror; Vulpes could have found any bullshit excuse to justify his atrocity (oh, Novac harbored ex-NCR! Oh, Primm had a casino! oh, Goodsprings had a
live old man, clearly they
deserved to be crucified and torched!).
What you don't seem to understand is that this kind of behavior makes them come across as stupidly evil to almost everybody. That they employ such bullshit excuses cements this status even more.
Nipton was razed, because it's people had no principles, as said in game, they served all factions without regard, powder gangers, NCR and Caesar's Legion so long as you had money.
Like the traders in NCR's camp. I don't see them being murdered. Oh, but they are useful to the Legion, so I guess it's alright. Again, it's all excuses.
That has no place in a civilized world.
Oh yeah, rape, murder, torture is OK, but gambling and prostitutes? amoral and uncivilized as fuck.
Obviously an elderly man who does not have means to provide himself money aka a strong body for labor then he will go to jail for failure to pay taxes. Note he is not murdered in the Legion because of your reasoning, because he can provide nothing to his faction so he is killed, because the Legion does not offer free rides for useless men.
You an eugenist or something? The eldery can do so much more good for a community than indoctrinated killers. And most of the old people we meet in New Vegas are far from burdens (to wit, Easy Pete, the Ranger in Novac, Loyal, Pearl, Sterling, the Remnants, hell ol' Edward himself, and I am only counting humans here).
If they attack (which as seen by their abduction of Caesar, they are) the NCR will respond in kind just as they did to the Great Kahns. Caesar would also attack them, but after victory at least the women and children would be assimilated and taught a uniform language, where as we have no way of knowing what the NCR would do with them.
Arroyo is a State in the Republic. Even the Khans are mostly left alone after they are no longer a threat, and as stated by others are a very special case, I strongly doubt that Ceasar would be merciful if his faction had been at war with a group for close to 150 years.
Umm, if you can make people blindly run into combat with a machete and football armor, and not fear death while also never giving even slight criticism to their leader, then yah your civilization will pretty much never have internal conflict.
What about their commanders? Such a competitive system is sure to bring rivalry into this, and in a culture where problems are always solved by violence this can degenerate very quickly.
Your arbitrary declaration that nobody else in the Legion is capable of leading is also laughable, especially since one of the men you mentioned does rule Caesar's Legion without any problems, so Marcus (someone who really knows nothing about the Legion) was also, not surprisingly, wrong as well.
I hope you do not talk about Lanius. He pretty much forgets the project of the Legion and turns it into a barbarian army with no purpose other than war, and he has doubts about his own faction, as evidenced by his end-game talks. And Marcus knows exactly what a visionary tyrant is like.
Lastly to answer another post no democracy has lasted longer than the roman empire, so yes dictatorships, emperors, or tyrants whatever you want to call them, have lasted longer than systems that let the masses decide the fate of the nation.
The old ''the masses can't decide anything, we must impose it to them!'' that every tyrant has conveniently spouted out since forever? Get a better argument please. Also, the US democracy dates back to 1760, and is still going on. British parlementarism is even older, and widespread around the world. Rome itself was a Republic (not a true democracy, sure, but the underlying principle was there) for a long time, and was arguably most successful as one. The Mongol empire fractured into a handful of powerful, but still weaker States. The Aztecs were broken because they stepped on the toes of everybody else. Alexander, Napoleon, not to mention the Axis powers and the Soviet Union to a lesser degree, all these products of conquest always broke down, because law is what makes a State hold, not senseless violence.
Unfortunately democracies do not have much longevity compared to empires who are utilitarian like Caesar's legion and do not make sacrifices and compromises in order to ensure that civilization comes to the wastes.
Debunked above. Compromises are an integral part of maintaining an empire. The trick is to make sure said compromise always favor you, which House and NCR understand. Machiavel says it best; to be loved is alright, to be feared is good, to be hated is a big no-no.
It is their utilitarian methods. I also whole heatedly disagree the charismatic NPCs are all part of Caesar's Legion and I hope that CL makes it into Fallout 4 with no changes just more exposition on their controlled towns.
Then give examples of charismatic Legion characters. You know, someone who has a personality and who you would not be reviled to meet in real-life. Lanius and Silus are out, I already singled them out (even if I would be scared as hell of Lanius and his huge sword, but thats beside the point).
But I do disagree with your non- blameable bombers. The bomber commanders can also be blamed for their destruction of civilians, because they know they are going to hit civilian centers, like when the U.S. killed 100,000 German citizens at Dresden even though we knew that no industrial facilities were there. even if we do aim at factories and such we know are weapons aren't accurate enough to hit just them.
You misunderstand; it was not an offical policy. That's the difference between NCR and the Legion; when NCR does stuff like this, it's viewed as a mistake to correct. When the Legion does this, they do so with glee because Ceasar told so and it's eeeeeeevil. That's whate separates moral grayness from plain villainy; not the act, but the aftermath, the reaction and the reasoning to it (to an extent; Dresden was an atrocity too often overlooked when Allies are claimed to be the good guys).
Also if Caesar dies then the Legate takes his place and no such infighting occurs. If you ask Vulpes or Lucuis who the Legate is they all respond with Caesar's second. It was quite clear who Caesar's successor was, but with Hitler that was not the case.
Choosing the brute who cares about nothing but bloodshed for a successor? that's gonna end in a pacified, prosperous empire in no time.
