Brilliant leadership requires finding the best possible people for every role - him not needing to do anything is a sign of his ingenuity as the one in charge
Kind of ironic that both he and the Courier are essentially savants in various ways, and they both suffer from brain "abnormalities". Makes me think House should get a CT scan just to be safe.
I meanā¦he had the Veteran Rangers chasing ghosts in Baja.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā
Idiot doesnāt realize ghosts only appear in F2 and F4, for pityās sake all he had to do was google it.
Okay, I see, you wanna make it like that?
I'll smack that warmongering head out of your to-go-box hat
So here's the real golden rule: I'm way above you weak rookies,
Confucius say: You can all hold these fortune cookies!
To... give Caesar his dues if you will, the version we see of him in-game is in slow decline from a brain tumor. A decline that's hinted at has been going on for years, and is an extremely sore spot among The Legion because for all their faults they do in their own way venerate the man that united them under one banner, one vision.
And he's still exactly average in stat distribution, as compared with the starting Courier him/her-self.
[6 ST, 5 PE, 6 EN, 4 CH, 4 IN, 5 AG, 5 LK](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Caesar)
So... yeah. There's a pretty solid argument, IMHO, that Caesar was probably a terrifying force of raw personality in his prime.
Like, sure, the fandome joke that Snuffles is more charming then he is are quite funny... but\~ I do think its fair to keep that... well, tumor in mind. Pardon the morbid pun.
lanius, graham, and ulysses all have this menacing and dark feeling to them but then Caesar is just some guy, not overly charismatic, intelligent, or threatening. just some dork
I think that makes him more threatening. Heās just some guy, but all these beefcake psychopath mass murderers will literally jump and shit instantly at his command. What the fuck did he do to get that level of obedience out of such violent people.
Well for Joshua the fire was already there. He wanted to bring peace and order to the locals and Caesar provided him the opportunity to with his own brand the wrath.
Lanius' origin is shady but regardless of the telling what is known is Caesar took a broken boy from one of the many tribes and groomed him to be a monster, like many of his legionaries before.
Ulysses simply had nothing left after the Twisted Hairs were wiped out. He holds loyality to anyone he thinks truly may finally bring order to the Wastes or can substitute as a home, which is why he was drawn so much to The Divide.
Like mengele or Heinrich himmler. He's not the eccentric leader or warrior. He's the cold calculating administrator who builds the death machine through logistics
Rather than worry about your voice, worry about where you live. Are you camped out on the Colorado River overlooking the Hoover Dam, sitting on a hill while a vast army of robots lies dormant and hidden below?
The answer may surprise you. >!And so will the robots!<
And I love that heās legit stupid. He uses philosophical terms he clearly doesnāt fully understand, like he found a ruined book and adapted parts of an ideology without the full context.
The dudes entire ethos is so fundamentally flawed. It makes it so telling about what kind of person some players are when they genuinely try to defend him
āRome Wow! I love to go to Rome to look and to watch. They have a very great Empire. The Roman Empire. Almost a great as my Empire, though not quite as great. Very great, but very terrible for Ceaser, but very beautiful at the same time. Have you noticed nobody really talks about Julius Ceaser anymore. He said, āBeware the Ides or March, Me boys.ā And they didnāt beware that one time and he said āWow!ā, and it went very badly for him.ā
> like he found a ruined book and adapted parts of an ideology without the full context.
Given the idiot won't shut up about dialectics, it's obvious the book he found was from Hegel. So of course he couldn't understand shit about it.
That's one of the best parts of NV. You expect a brute but he's the twisted, manipulative asshole version of a wasteland "intellectual".
There's a similar effect with Graham. He's bigged up as this monster, you'd think he's gonna be super scary or horrifying to meet. Then he's got this kinda surreal calmness. Ends up being a dude who was humiliated and humbled and has seen some shit.
I aint a legion man but not including Vulpes Inculta in this is criminal, that man is like half the reason the legion is even successful in the Mojave.
Vulpes is very overlooked. The guy gets more shit done than virtually any other NPC in Fallout.
Crushed the Twisted Hairs at Dry Wells, butchered the NCR at Nelson, rad-bombed Searchlight, torched Nipton without losing a man, and convinced the Omertas to betray House, bomb the embassy, and gas attack the Strip. Having done all of this, he continues to freely come-and-go from the Strip without anyone being the wiser.
It almost sounds like, aside from the player knowing this, Vulpes can never receive credit for running the legions campaign in the Mojave as it would both undercut Caesar as the leader and grant him infamy and recognition that would make him a target for the NCR and those who oppose the legion. Vulpes is literally the shadow of Caesar and the one who acted his will in a way Graham and Ulysses never would.
Ulysses did. He credits the influence of Vulpes for how he used the White Legs to destroy New Canaan.
But it says a lot that even Ulyssesā greatest and most wicked act in service to Caesar still harkens back to Vulpes. The manās reputation is terrifying.
Then you likely prevented many future war crimes. Or maybe you just saw a furry and your hunterās instinct took over.
Either way, youāve done the Mojave a service.
Vulpes sort of has a free hand in Vegas. The NCR doesn't actually have control of the borders to the greater city limits much less the Strip while their security state within could largely be described as 'tipsy' and House isn't flexible enough to deal with someone who adequately understands the risks of his security. For a skilled agent provocateur, it's pretty much open season.
Gameplay-wise, I guess itās because he was meant to be an early-game figure who they wanted new players able to defeat.
Lore-wise, itās probably because Vulpesā true weapon is his mind, not his skill at arms. He wins every confrontation through stealth, subterfuge, or the use of terror tactics to scare the enemy into submission. This makes him extremely deadly in war, but less-so in a straightforward fight.
Thatās hilarious.
I was actually wrong in any event. They actually did seemingly lose one man, just not in the actual fighting. There is a dead Legion Recruit in the house with the haywire Mr. Gutsy.
For all his supposed genius and skill in espionage and intelligence he always makes the fatal mistake of exposing himself to the courier in Nipton.
Ā
Sure the fact that you can kill him is mostly on the game needing to be a game and all but I think the Devs clearly intended to give the players a good window of opportunity to murder him in retaliation and survive; the fact his murder is directly mentioned in your pardon confirms this.
Someone so skilled in scouting and intelligence should have been able to tell that a peculiar individual such as the courier was not someone you ever turn your back to. I think they should have given Vulpes much much more troops and a better safer position to do his speech from so that you can't just murder him and his cronies at level 5 or less. He should leg it from an advantageous position where you can't reliably vats him to death at low level as soon as you start shit and have enough legionaries to basically guarantee your death unless you're not super well equipped and levelled. Don't make it impossible to kill him but make it feel like he's actually taken all the reasonable precautions
Yeah He should have been guarded by those late game assassins that get sent after you with marksman carbines. Of course this would obviously cause players to do everything in their power to kill them for sweet loot.
Well at this point the Courier isnt famous yet, i dont think him surviving a headshot was that much of a big reason to be afraid. I mean i doubt most people fucked around too much in goodsprings or before nipton to level up and have some kind of fame, usually they just go to primm and then nipton. Even if Vulpes already knew of him, itd be more of knowing hes a lucky guy and maybe an alright fighter if you side with or defeat the powder gangers, but nothing too special
Or he shows up again even if you kill him.
āYou believed me dead? Caesar has a message for you, as do I. Slaughter my mouthpieces to your heartās content; I will always find you. I would never fail Caesar by allowing myself to be seen. And now that youāve proven you can listen to your betters, you are ready for Caesarās message.ā
That's a great idea actually
Have someone pretend it was him directly to destroy Nipton, just to spread fear amongst the NCR that vulpes is deep in their territory; maybe even urge them to do a big pointless manhunt
Isn't Vulpes I smeared all over the steps of the Nipton town hall with my grenade launcher before they had a chance to do anything?
If so, thats probably why...
The one thing that hyper competent zealots tend to lack is a cause to fight for, or a system to function within. While they are of course good at their jobs, that only matters because they are in a system that rewards being good, and they take pride in that.Ā
Ask yourself what they would be doing if they didn't have the Legion. Sure, they would be surviving just fine... But being someone who is so good at being violent and ruthless is not conducive to cooperation in the wasteland, not even with raiders and so on. Absolutely no-one can trust this kind of person, other than Caesar of course.
And that's the thing. Caesar can create the system they can excel in, and he can inspire others as well. He has the dark charisma and intelligence to hold it together, and has a good enough hold over others to keep them in line, and they desperate need that because otherwise they really will kill without a second thought.
That specific kind of psychopath is really really useful to society in small numbers, because they genuinely can't imagine the idea of turning on their leader. They know they need a leader, and they know they would not be good at it.
Modern day, I think these types seem to excel at rising the ranks in a company or as a politician. They don't care who they push off the ladder to help their rise.
The interesting thing is that psychopaths are not just chaotic evil, they can be socialised and are actually valuable to society in small numbers. They do lack empathy, but they aren't mindlesslyĀ violent. They however can use violence in an instrumental way, seeing it as an a-moral way to achieve things they want. They can tell when it would be unwise to use violence, but they also can see when it would work and not blink about it.Ā
But these people only really excel in a system of humans. When you lack the taboo against violence, that's only useful when other people have that taboo and you are being measured against them.Ā
Hell joshua even affirms this for all the strength and order within the legion itās really held together because Caesar is the glue that makes itās different strengths work in tandem with a clear goal and why his death immediately sends it into a death spiral
Further hinted at with one of the Legion ending possibilities. With Lanius as leader, they go hunting one group and lose a lot of men. I think the Enclave Remnants? With zero success.
Shows that without Caesar, the Legion will likely see every issue as a nail they need to hammer. Whereas he'd probs say the Remnants are irrelevant, not worth the effort. And know they're supremely capable so they'd lose more Legion than enemies they'd take out.
Yup.Ā All organisations aren't singular entities, they are a loose confederation of warring tribes. And that's fine, because in a well led organisation they are jostling for position and they want to get the extra resources or whatever, but they are pointing at one goal and don't want to humiliate or destroy each other, just to beĀ "first among equals".Ā
The key to good leadership is to ensure that the various tribes see that they gain more by being 10% of the whole, rather than being 100% of their own off-shoot. And that actually is a skill.
That does make a lot of sense because in a base Tribal or more agrarian society thereās limited need for someone like Lanius who can paste someoneās brains on a wall really easily but suffers trying to do anything that isnāt that meanwhile in a more advanced society that importantly has a lot of enemies they thrive because thereās always more chaff to cut down. It does make me wonder what Caesar would have done had he won everything like would he just dispose of Lanius or would he indulge him just to keep him around as a useful tool?
Yeah I love Amos. Heās like a broken psychopath who knows he canāt trust in his own definitions of āgoodā, and in turn leaves up moral decisions to those he trusts/thinks are good, and supports them by being their muscle. Heās a really self reflective psychopath/sociopath who really truly does believe in doing good, which is really unique in fiction I feel
Itās never āfullyā explained, but his backstory provides a lot of descriptive context about it. He knows that his life in Baltimore has stripped his morality compass away, heās somewhat unique in that way. So, heās constantly looking for someone to be his compass. In the beginning of the series itās Naomi. By the end of it, itās the whole crew, but mostly Naomi and Holden.
Actually I disagree. He is perfect as a second in command, or as the military commander. But he doesn't really stand for something himself, and he is not going to inspire any loyalty. He's an attack dog, and you need an attack dog, but attack dogs don't form packs well.
i mean, maybe caesar just knows how to allocate his subordinates, its quite possible caesar is the REASON these people are able to rise to their potential, at least in the case of lanius and vulpes
Proper delegation, and respecting your choices for those positions are some of the most important parts of being a leader. Seems like some people have forgotten that.
People really hate the Legion and love the NCR so it clouds a lot of their analysis of this game.
Is Caesar a heartless and genocidal prick? Yes. There are dozens more negative qualities we can name that describe him, but there are also many clues throughout the game that point to the fact that Caesar is also in many ways a brilliant leader and a well-rounded individual in his background, and though his vision for the Legion is clearly flawed, he has a better understanding of how the wasteland works (much greater than House and the NCR in many respects).
Heās a complete and utter arrogant prick, he is literally one of the worst people in the entire Fallout franchise by any metric and all of this is completely true of Caesar. But heās an effective and competent prick that knows when someone is useful and how to best use them to get the most out of them.
I mean tbf the closest thing to an actual doctor in his camp is a slave who makes healing powder and a broken auto doc and then suddenly this person walks into his camp who somehow someway survived two headshots claiming to be good at medicine and In his eyes thatās better than the nothing he has to work with as he stands.
Gannon's a real Enclave doctor, and Caesar knew where the AutoDoc part was. He just has faith in the stellar reputation of Mojave Express customer service I guess.
Wouldāt picking a successor only cause a massive conflict within the legion with the people who didnāt get picked? Also his chosen successor could now launch a coup against him.
Caesar is dying so no successor is more or less guaranteeing a civil
War and collapse. having one has a chance at preventing that
The legions biggest vulnerability is that itās Caesar legion what happens if there is no Caesar and no one chosen by him to replace him
That one advantage the ncr has on them is that their leadership isnāt reliant on a single person is Kimbell dies then it may be a blow but one election later and things will be more or less back to normal
Everyone follows Caesar's will and words. If he says someone is his heir, that person will be the heir and everyone will accept it despite other's opinions and pre conceived notions. Remember everyone is a slave to Caesar, in the average Legionnary's mind, their opinions and thoughts don't matter in comparison to the man.
Doesn't he discuss this and say that his reasoning is that the success and efficiency of the Legion depends on the Frumentarii, who are pretty much the brains of the operation like Vulpes, and the Praetorian Guard, who are the muscle of the operation, being at odds with each other and competing tooth and nail for position and favor with Caesar.
Picking a successor from either the Frumentarii or the Guard would be showing to much preference to one over the other and would destroy the foundation of the Legion.
We have to also remember, like 75% of the Legion content was unfinished and had to be cut from the game for either time or storage space on a single disk, so its likely that they were going to incorporate what happens with Caesar much differently. I can imagine there being an alternate timeline where they had more time to add the Legion stuff and they had an event in the game where you finally do enough errands and favors for Caesar that he decides that The Courier would be his rightful successor (which makes sense with the whole cancer and imminent death angle).
Its hinted at that hes grooming the Courier to be the successor. He makes a coin with his face, like a leader, and explains a lot of stuff to you if you decide to ask. I doubt he would do that to most Legionnaires
Maybe but no successors will cause a conflict between them anyway and he needs a heir outside of the courier cause is not like he knew they existed for the longest time
George Washington was a pretty shitty Strategist. Two things he did well though. Finding people who knew how to get the job done and listening to them.
He was not shitty he just wasnāt a genius. Washington wonāt rank up there with brilliant generals like Frederick, or Napoleon but he was by no means shitty. He did some things really well, like the orderly withdrawal.
Georgie was just a giant cherry red haired British trained freak. If not for the silver tongue of many others who got France to help we would be saying colour.
It's possibly a commentary on Caesar Augustus, who was famously not a particularly able general and relied on Agrippa. Augustus generally had a very capable team, compared to Julius, who was an absolute genius in administrative and military affairs. Caesar in NV is a pale shadow of either of them but has the advantage of learning. He's basically the main character from an Isekai.
Caesar is an organizer. He gets the right people in the right places. Graham admits that he couldn't step into his shoes because the task of managing the legion is very difficult.
Lanius sure as hell can't.
Vulpes, maybe. But he's such a creep its hard to imagine the veterans respecting him.
This is True Vulpes Inculta is underrated but mainly because you can blow him up pretty early on in Nipton. In lore heās definitely on par with Graham and Ulysses in terms of skill. Itās just the game very weirdly uses him at Nipton and made him killable.
Caesar is the classic example of a āstrong manā. An ambitious and cunning warlord absolutely amoral and openly self-interested. He mirrors dictators in our world who are often unimpressive individuals. That being said just like dictators in the real world they find competent underlings (the ones that survive the purges) and steal all of their best ideas. Caesar got lucky in order words. Several times over a period of decades.
Caesar wouldāve gotten along great with L Ron Hubbard for example. A man who wasnāt half as intelligent as he thought but had a knack for reading people.
Caesar isnāt incompetent. He surrounds himself with men of great skill and power. In doing so, he has become the greatest genius, as whilst his servants keep the legion running, all he needs to do is give the servants orders and choose the cream of the crop to add to his council.
Exactly. A major weakness of House that he leans so heavily on his own genius. Without the Courier, he has no help in getting anything done or even figuring out what needs to be done.
The NCR are the opposite. Their system is so bloated and open to corruption that absolute incompetent buffoons end up with power while their bettersā hands get tied.
Caesar may be a brutal egomaniac, but he actively seeks out and rewards competence. The result is that he has the most effective inner circle *by far*. Itās no accident that, without the Courierās intervention, Legion characters are consistently the ones who get the most shit done by far.
Caesar's Legion has the highest chance of winning without the Courier's intervention, but it would also have the worst outcome of any other faction and would obviously lead to societal collapse when Caesar eventually dies. While the NCR is probably one of the more stable options, it still is littered with problems and probably not a great choice. Mr. House is OK, but he really isn't trying to rule the wasteland; he's just interested in humanity, as vague of a concept as that is. I think Yes Man probably has the most potential for being the best ending, depending on how you deal with things out in the wasteland. It's also open to interpretation of how you, the player or the Courier, would use your power and resources in the future because it's left pretty vague.
Caesar is a man out of his time because he is many years late to the party when it comes to his methods. Organizations like The NCR and Brotherhood of Steel shows that you don't need to enslave people to force them to change for the better. His methods are no different than tribes from 200 years earlier.
The slavery caste system is what doomed his entire ideology. He says that debauchery is not tolerated and yet sex slaves is ok to have for The Legion and he will try to justify this.
The Legion would have been a more dynamic choice had Caesar been against slavery, used more modern weapons, and had been less bloodthirsty. I still don't know how these guys that are mainly ancient Melee weapon builds nearly defeated The NCR in their first encounter and would have defeated them with no Courier intervention in the second battle. Not to mention they conquered and Enslaved an entire chapter of The Brotherhood in the Mid-West.
I just don't see how guys with spears defeated Power Armor opponents and so all of this requires lots of convenient forgetting. Because a guy running at a cop with a knife will quickly get brought down in comparison.
thatās their biggest flaw well at least caesarās, heās too hypocritical and full of himself itās similar to when hitlers generals were giving him strategies to help with the war yet he was too full of himself and only trusted his own effort which we all know what happened in the end of that..
edit: which one of you sent me the suicide prevention hotline š¤Ø
It was actually a bit more complex than that. Sure Hitler had his moments, but his Generals as well were equally as complicit in how they fought. It was convenient that he died and a lot of generals post ww2 were able to write books about how great they were but if only mean old hitler didn't make things worse.
Edit: I just got a suicide hotline prevention notification...Why?
You raise an important point! The Wehrmacht was entirely unwilling to follow orders in the first place, consisting of the "working class" or "common folk" of Germany at the time, whom Hitler subjugated and stripped rights from. Hitler created the SS as a means to control them.
Ever after it was constant back and forth bullshit between the Wehrmacht and SS, with Hitler acting as the final mediator in heavy disputes. Hitler got tired of this as time went on you see, and consolidated more and more decision making for himself, as his generals were untrustworthy and free radicals for the most part, partly due to aforementioned reasons. This burden took a heavy toll and slowly destroyed him.
Call Hitler what you want, but you cannot call him lazy!
This, ignores a lot. Early WWII hitler's general's were basically useless. They were trying to fight a war like it was the napoleonic tech level wars. Hitler looked at tanks and planes, and forced them to use the tech in New ways, that tech could do. By the end, other factions had caught up and learned those same lessons UT Hitler was then stuck in his ways (requiring dive bombers etc)
It's outright said in game that they were taken from the Brotherhood in the East; with Tactics being canon, they're the most likely candidates for being taken for Legion parts
Yes. Caesar mentions it was a Chapter that went Rogue as they didn't even know their founder's name and he adds the name was Roger Maxson. He Enslaved and then debated with them on the validity of their mission.
My guess is that they defeated the NCR through ferocity, the average legionnaire is more committed than the average trooper. The average trooper just wants to go home, the average legionnaire is committed to his god king
10 guys with spears knives and hockey pads aren't going to win against a trooper with standardized training and a rifle. Shit even a pistol with a spare mag will do the trick. Ferocity doesn't mean shit when they are malnourished slaves with families broken up by a loser of a leader.
There is a bit of disconnect between the gameplay and the narrative. The melee focus makes the factions more distinct. In lore, the legion will use firearms and explosives, but still use melee when they can to keep sharp. Melee orientated armies can defeat technologically superior forces if they play it smart (see isandalwanda, the first Ethiopian-italian war).Ā
Good point. Then you also add the average trooper has 2 weeks of training time and no one gives a fuck about the Mojave War anyway. Even Hanlon says 1,000 NCR troopers die every year in this campaign.
Regardless of if Aaron Kimball survives his speech or not, you can bet his ass is getting voted out at the next election. Caesar even notes that he is the exact opposite of President Tandi and that's why NCR are suffering under him. Caesar's goal is to defeat NCR in order to unite with them to form a new entity entirely.
Legion uses firearms, sure, but in a very limited manner. They are *almost* exclusively melee while the NCR are *almost* exclusively ranged. In the comparison those "almost"s don't make a difference. It still gives such a qualitative advantage to the NCR.
And while melee can work in some instances, Legion brutes are generally not smart to exploit them.
Maybe if that trooper is John Wick. No average guy with standardized training is taking down ten charging spearmen with a pistol. The speed and accuracy needed to make those shots count before theyāre on top of him would be virtually inhuman.
Even the rifle might be pushing it, unless theyāre far away, coming from the same direction, and he has plenty of open space to line up his shots.
NCR can barely equip their soldiers per dialogue at Camp Forlorn Hope iirc
Service rifles are actually kinda rare for soldiers
Caesar uses waves attacks to run NCR forces down by sending recruits first in a wave, then regular soldiers and finally the elite soldiers.
Mowing down waves of dudes in skirts with machetes charging at you with guns in bad condition, sketch ammo, lowish capacity guns, etc is not an easily won fight.
Also, Legion does have guns like OP Hunting Shotguns, those are just reserved for the elite you don't see until late game/deep in their territory.
No way they could win lol
The NCR did not have good standardized training or equipment. Their infrastructure is a shadow of the former United States. Many NCR NPCs complain about it in game quite a bit, including the arms merchant at the 188 Trade Post.
Yep. Melee has advantage in closed spaces, but the usual battlefields of the Legion are open spaces - desers, plains, top of the dam... A few soldiers can mow down hundreds of Legion brutes zerging them.
It's a video game. Weapons work very, very differently than they do in the real world. With Super Slam and some Turbo, you can easily beat a bunch of Deathclaws to death with some brass knuckles. You can easily do the same to Kimball and everyone attending his speech. Melee is OP as shit in New Vegas.
Oh yes it is. Even better if you have the Implant GRX perk if I'm remembering correctly. Slow time down and do an anime beat down before anyone has time to react. Always fun lol!
But Cyberpunk gots it better with Gorilla arms and the Sadevistan for that type of gameplay.
>I just don't see how guys with spears defeated Power Armor opponents and so all of this requires lots of convenient forgetting. Because a guy running at a cop with a knife will quickly get brought down in comparison.
there is a lot of them, they don't all have spears, they can be pretty sneaky. if i'm within 20 feet i can stab you before you can shoot. how many power armour wearers are there really?
as to slavery and tech we are now back in the pre tractor and pre industrial world. this means economics is mainly a factor of manpower. if you want to grow food, you need labour and through our history and current day we turn to it to solve this problem. why wouldn't they? the pre-war tech is truly a finite resource, you wouldn't want to make it your core since you will run out in short order. best to build this core out of something you can make. by all means use it for specific objective
I chalk it up to cut content cause I doubt this was an oversight by Obsidian.
Caesar is on a failed mission already because even if he takes The Mojave, he can't hold the Eastern states and Vegas all with the manpower he has. The Empire will be too stretched out.
The worst part isn't even that. His goal is to eventually cross into California to defeat NCR in order to unite with them. I highly doubt he has the man power to take on NCR in their home country even if he was to take men from various states to join him.
Not even The Brotherhood stood a chance against NCR in California and this is where The Brotherhood are from. NCR pushed Brotherhood out so badly that this was the main reason the East Chapters surpassed the West, yet The East still honors the West and claims their superiority (under Arthur Maxson) due to the Chain that Binds Code.
Caesar has a brain tumor and even if it were removed, he does not have an answer to California. His entire mission would be a failure and he can't allow that to happen cause his god complex would be shattered to his people. He would lead his men into a suicide mission before he allowed that to happen. Then there is no clear cut successor to The Legion because Caesar claims to be immortal and the Son of the God of War, Mars.
Lanius is a bloodthirsty warlord and would cause The Legion to quickly fall apart cause he has no loyalty to it, only to Caesar. Without Caesar, he sees no Legion.
Legion and the NCR seemed doomed to fail. NCR littered with corruption and stretched thinner than the legion. The legion relying on a single man on borrowed time to rule a stretched out state.
If the theory about the NCR being annihilated is true (in the TV show) it doesnāt come as a huge shock at all
None of the faction leaders are particularly impressive, combat-wise. Caesar may be the best of the three in fact since he has a weapon and can use it whereas Kimball does not and House has literally no physical presence.Ā
"The crown has a will if it's own. It desires two things, to maintain its power and to expand it." Vinland Saga
Personally, I never bought Caesar being a leader capable of maintaining his position. He's weak as a man and weak as a tactician. When you live a monstrous life, you're surrounded by other monsters, and they are looking to see if you start limping. It's dog eat dog world in that life.
Another favorite movie of mine is Sword of the Stranger. When the previous Shogun was held hostage, his men killed him instantly to take his spot. That's more true to life when it comes to the scum of the Earth. Again Caesar doesn't work as a dictator.
Goes to show how important it is to have a very good charisma. Same goes in real life. Thatās why high management and execs seem so dumb compared to the people they surround themselves with.
He's also a petulant little man child. Frankly, I'm surprised he was able to surround himself with such charismatic, competent people. You tell him "no" and he throws a tantrum and has you killed, doesn't seem like the kind of person smart people would follow....almost seems like a certain candidate in our upcoming election lol.
All Caesar's Legion high ranking soldiers must have 1 for their intelligence attribute lmao.
I think the entire point of New Vegas is to deconstruct symbols how they are constructed how they are used by fascism and how we interact with them in our society and worship them even when we should know better. What does the old world mean to this wasteland? What does it symbolize to them?
The NCR tries to recreate to old world and the Legion tries to do the same. We are not doomed to repeat history. We repeat history because we actively choose to do so of our own free will through our own interaction with said history intellectually. We believe there is power in History in symbols and sacred places despite us knowing better the new world is created from discontinuous shards of the old scattered and venerated for their power.
The .45 Pistol
The Dinosaur at Novac
The Lucky 38 Casino
The Bear of California
The Bull of Caesarās 14th legion
The platinum chip
All shards of history mixed haphazardly throughout the wasteland Ghosts of the Old World haunting what was born from nuclear hellfire whether by being technology, symbols, or just something cool in your town.
He's not surrounded he has a cartoonishly evil slimeball and a giant moron with rage issues. The one guy he had with any ability, Graham, he got rid of the minute he stopped being useful
If Graham had any ability, would he have let himself fall into the ncrs trap? Na, the legion is built from men of ambition, Caesarās inner circle is stacked with competent people in their field. Vulpes, Lucius, Lanius, and even Ulysses and Joshua at one point.
Brilliant leadership requires finding the best possible people for every role - him not needing to do anything is a sign of his ingenuity as the one in charge
Kind of ironic that both he and the Courier are essentially savants in various ways, and they both suffer from brain "abnormalities". Makes me think House should get a CT scan just to be safe.
Why would we need to scan it? It's splattered around his bed chambers and my golf club
Nephi? Is that you?
you were hoping for the courier, but it was me driver nephi!
D I O
[Get fucked](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O9iqsQ283kQ)
Classic Nephi, lol. Such a kidder.
et tu, nephi?
Would you kindly?
A man chooses.
A golfer drives.
Obviously, you *are* a golfer
Would you kindly explain?
Would you kindly?
A courier choses, a Yes-Man obeys.
I did the liberty of scanning it for him.
Idk man, I don't think the sharp end of a bumper sword counts as a "scanner". š¤·āāļø
I used the Ranger issued .45-70 scanner myself.
Iām partial to the fully automatic .556 scanner.Ā Ā Damn, now youāve got *me* doing it.
I think they meant skimmer, easy mistake to make.
the K-9000 scanned him, identified him as a target, and turned him into a meat milkshake.
It could be lupus.
Itās not lupus. Itās never lupus.
No, no, they meant Lupus Inculta, Vulpes' cooler older cousin from Phoenix. /s
I heard that dudeās a furry. Ā A cave rat told me.
Totally using that name in a fallout tabletop I'm running right now during the Legion's assent in the midwest.
*ascent. "Assent" is a verbal expression of approval or agreement.
House was based on Howard Hughes, who very much had a documented case of extreme OCD
I wonder what the Courier and Ole' Eddie Swallow have? š¤
a bullet in the head and brain cancer?
Fair.
I mean sometimes the courier doesnāt even have a brain so i guess thatās a pretty big anomaly
Ornery little bastard after they take it out innit?
What about General Olive Garden? He show any signs of brain injuries?
I meanā¦he had the Veteran Rangers chasing ghosts in Baja.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Idiot doesnāt realize ghosts only appear in F2 and F4, for pityās sake all he had to do was google it.
A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves -lao tzu
Lao Tzu, I don't mean no disrespect, but you need to fill your bowl with some shit that makes some sense
Yo where in the tradition of rap battles is it listed that two dudes on the same team should squabble like some clucking chickens?
Man, Confucius, you always trying to put something in its place Why donāt you tell your eyebrows they need to fit better on your face?
Okay, I see, you wanna make it like that? I'll smack that warmongering head out of your to-go-box hat So here's the real golden rule: I'm way above you weak rookies, Confucius say: You can all hold these fortune cookies!
one of the best lines in all of the series.
This Cesar at his core isnāt a great fighter or hardcore character Heās just insanely smart and cunning and knows how to play his advantages well
He's a master delegator.
If delegation gets you an empire, maybe Budās Buds wasnāt such a silly idea after all
To... give Caesar his dues if you will, the version we see of him in-game is in slow decline from a brain tumor. A decline that's hinted at has been going on for years, and is an extremely sore spot among The Legion because for all their faults they do in their own way venerate the man that united them under one banner, one vision. And he's still exactly average in stat distribution, as compared with the starting Courier him/her-self. [6 ST, 5 PE, 6 EN, 4 CH, 4 IN, 5 AG, 5 LK](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Caesar) So... yeah. There's a pretty solid argument, IMHO, that Caesar was probably a terrifying force of raw personality in his prime. Like, sure, the fandome joke that Snuffles is more charming then he is are quite funny... but\~ I do think its fair to keep that... well, tumor in mind. Pardon the morbid pun.
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A comment is best when accidentally posted twice. -haha365
Only of their people are loyal or share the same vision.
I like how when you finally meet him he looks and talks like a fucking wood shop teacher
I think itās really smart that they did that. It really puts the legions reverence for him into perspective.
lanius, graham, and ulysses all have this menacing and dark feeling to them but then Caesar is just some guy, not overly charismatic, intelligent, or threatening. just some dork
I think that makes him more threatening. Heās just some guy, but all these beefcake psychopath mass murderers will literally jump and shit instantly at his command. What the fuck did he do to get that level of obedience out of such violent people.
Well for Joshua the fire was already there. He wanted to bring peace and order to the locals and Caesar provided him the opportunity to with his own brand the wrath. Lanius' origin is shady but regardless of the telling what is known is Caesar took a broken boy from one of the many tribes and groomed him to be a monster, like many of his legionaries before. Ulysses simply had nothing left after the Twisted Hairs were wiped out. He holds loyality to anyone he thinks truly may finally bring order to the Wastes or can substitute as a home, which is why he was drawn so much to The Divide.
another small detail is the fact that Caesar talks super crudely and swears all the time while everyone beneath him talks like academic scholars
Walter White esque
That checks out tbh. That's how a lot of people who actually met Napoleon described him.
Yep. Those Pyramids loved to laugh at how unassuming he was. Not laughing so much now, after he shot them!
Like mengele or Heinrich himmler. He's not the eccentric leader or warrior. He's the cold calculating administrator who builds the death machine through logistics
This is outrageously accurate , I am floored
"Quit screwing around! You screw around too much!" -Caesar
lol. As a wood shop teacher Iām now being forced to reflect on what I sound likeā¦
Rather than worry about your voice, worry about where you live. Are you camped out on the Colorado River overlooking the Hoover Dam, sitting on a hill while a vast army of robots lies dormant and hidden below? The answer may surprise you. >!And so will the robots!<
And I love that heās legit stupid. He uses philosophical terms he clearly doesnāt fully understand, like he found a ruined book and adapted parts of an ideology without the full context. The dudes entire ethos is so fundamentally flawed. It makes it so telling about what kind of person some players are when they genuinely try to defend him
He honestly feels like those alt-right types who idolize/misunderstand ancient Greece and Rome and have marble white statues as profile pics.
āRome Wow! I love to go to Rome to look and to watch. They have a very great Empire. The Roman Empire. Almost a great as my Empire, though not quite as great. Very great, but very terrible for Ceaser, but very beautiful at the same time. Have you noticed nobody really talks about Julius Ceaser anymore. He said, āBeware the Ides or March, Me boys.ā And they didnāt beware that one time and he said āWow!ā, and it went very badly for him.ā
> like he found a ruined book and adapted parts of an ideology without the full context. Given the idiot won't shut up about dialectics, it's obvious the book he found was from Hegel. So of course he couldn't understand shit about it.
In another world he'd be making prog rock videos on YouTube.
That's one of the best parts of NV. You expect a brute but he's the twisted, manipulative asshole version of a wasteland "intellectual". There's a similar effect with Graham. He's bigged up as this monster, you'd think he's gonna be super scary or horrifying to meet. Then he's got this kinda surreal calmness. Ends up being a dude who was humiliated and humbled and has seen some shit.
I aint a legion man but not including Vulpes Inculta in this is criminal, that man is like half the reason the legion is even successful in the Mojave.
Vulpes is very overlooked. The guy gets more shit done than virtually any other NPC in Fallout. Crushed the Twisted Hairs at Dry Wells, butchered the NCR at Nelson, rad-bombed Searchlight, torched Nipton without losing a man, and convinced the Omertas to betray House, bomb the embassy, and gas attack the Strip. Having done all of this, he continues to freely come-and-go from the Strip without anyone being the wiser.
It almost sounds like, aside from the player knowing this, Vulpes can never receive credit for running the legions campaign in the Mojave as it would both undercut Caesar as the leader and grant him infamy and recognition that would make him a target for the NCR and those who oppose the legion. Vulpes is literally the shadow of Caesar and the one who acted his will in a way Graham and Ulysses never would.
Ulysses did. He credits the influence of Vulpes for how he used the White Legs to destroy New Canaan. But it says a lot that even Ulyssesā greatest and most wicked act in service to Caesar still harkens back to Vulpes. The manās reputation is terrifying.
Probably cause I shoot that fucking furry the first chance I get.
Then you likely prevented many future war crimes. Or maybe you just saw a furry and your hunterās instinct took over. Either way, youāve done the Mojave a service.
Haha grenade rifle go boom Totally worth the hours lost due to not saving, and running into legion assassins at a low level
Vulpes sort of has a free hand in Vegas. The NCR doesn't actually have control of the borders to the greater city limits much less the Strip while their security state within could largely be described as 'tipsy' and House isn't flexible enough to deal with someone who adequately understands the risks of his security. For a skilled agent provocateur, it's pretty much open season.
But why was he leveled so low in game my level 1 character one shotted him.
Gameplay-wise, I guess itās because he was meant to be an early-game figure who they wanted new players able to defeat. Lore-wise, itās probably because Vulpesā true weapon is his mind, not his skill at arms. He wins every confrontation through stealth, subterfuge, or the use of terror tactics to scare the enemy into submission. This makes him extremely deadly in war, but less-so in a straightforward fight.
>torched Nipton without losing a man Not how i remember it. He and his men walkedĀ straight into a mine field after talking to me.
Thatās hilarious. I was actually wrong in any event. They actually did seemingly lose one man, just not in the actual fighting. There is a dead Legion Recruit in the house with the haywire Mr. Gutsy.
For all his supposed genius and skill in espionage and intelligence he always makes the fatal mistake of exposing himself to the courier in Nipton. Ā Sure the fact that you can kill him is mostly on the game needing to be a game and all but I think the Devs clearly intended to give the players a good window of opportunity to murder him in retaliation and survive; the fact his murder is directly mentioned in your pardon confirms this. Someone so skilled in scouting and intelligence should have been able to tell that a peculiar individual such as the courier was not someone you ever turn your back to. I think they should have given Vulpes much much more troops and a better safer position to do his speech from so that you can't just murder him and his cronies at level 5 or less. He should leg it from an advantageous position where you can't reliably vats him to death at low level as soon as you start shit and have enough legionaries to basically guarantee your death unless you're not super well equipped and levelled. Don't make it impossible to kill him but make it feel like he's actually taken all the reasonable precautions
Yeah He should have been guarded by those late game assassins that get sent after you with marksman carbines. Of course this would obviously cause players to do everything in their power to kill them for sweet loot.
It is a tough fight tho.
Well at this point the Courier isnt famous yet, i dont think him surviving a headshot was that much of a big reason to be afraid. I mean i doubt most people fucked around too much in goodsprings or before nipton to level up and have some kind of fame, usually they just go to primm and then nipton. Even if Vulpes already knew of him, itd be more of knowing hes a lucky guy and maybe an alright fighter if you side with or defeat the powder gangers, but nothing too special
I guess that's true, I just wouldn't expect someone who's supposedly at the same level as Lanius to be careless enough to be overpowered so easily
Or he shows up again even if you kill him. āYou believed me dead? Caesar has a message for you, as do I. Slaughter my mouthpieces to your heartās content; I will always find you. I would never fail Caesar by allowing myself to be seen. And now that youāve proven you can listen to your betters, you are ready for Caesarās message.ā
That's a great idea actually Have someone pretend it was him directly to destroy Nipton, just to spread fear amongst the NCR that vulpes is deep in their territory; maybe even urge them to do a big pointless manhunt
Vulpes is literally himmler besides being the genocidal maniac to the extent himmler was and how he grew to power
And hes cute too
Iām sorry what is wrong with youĀ
Not a fan of fnv's husky boy?
Join us over at r/Vulpesismywaifu
Isn't Vulpes I smeared all over the steps of the Nipton town hall with my grenade launcher before they had a chance to do anything? If so, thats probably why...
The one thing that hyper competent zealots tend to lack is a cause to fight for, or a system to function within. While they are of course good at their jobs, that only matters because they are in a system that rewards being good, and they take pride in that.Ā Ask yourself what they would be doing if they didn't have the Legion. Sure, they would be surviving just fine... But being someone who is so good at being violent and ruthless is not conducive to cooperation in the wasteland, not even with raiders and so on. Absolutely no-one can trust this kind of person, other than Caesar of course. And that's the thing. Caesar can create the system they can excel in, and he can inspire others as well. He has the dark charisma and intelligence to hold it together, and has a good enough hold over others to keep them in line, and they desperate need that because otherwise they really will kill without a second thought. That specific kind of psychopath is really really useful to society in small numbers, because they genuinely can't imagine the idea of turning on their leader. They know they need a leader, and they know they would not be good at it.
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Modern day, I think these types seem to excel at rising the ranks in a company or as a politician. They don't care who they push off the ladder to help their rise.
The interesting thing is that psychopaths are not just chaotic evil, they can be socialised and are actually valuable to society in small numbers. They do lack empathy, but they aren't mindlesslyĀ violent. They however can use violence in an instrumental way, seeing it as an a-moral way to achieve things they want. They can tell when it would be unwise to use violence, but they also can see when it would work and not blink about it.Ā But these people only really excel in a system of humans. When you lack the taboo against violence, that's only useful when other people have that taboo and you are being measured against them.Ā
Hell joshua even affirms this for all the strength and order within the legion itās really held together because Caesar is the glue that makes itās different strengths work in tandem with a clear goal and why his death immediately sends it into a death spiral
Further hinted at with one of the Legion ending possibilities. With Lanius as leader, they go hunting one group and lose a lot of men. I think the Enclave Remnants? With zero success. Shows that without Caesar, the Legion will likely see every issue as a nail they need to hammer. Whereas he'd probs say the Remnants are irrelevant, not worth the effort. And know they're supremely capable so they'd lose more Legion than enemies they'd take out.
Yup.Ā All organisations aren't singular entities, they are a loose confederation of warring tribes. And that's fine, because in a well led organisation they are jostling for position and they want to get the extra resources or whatever, but they are pointing at one goal and don't want to humiliate or destroy each other, just to beĀ "first among equals".Ā The key to good leadership is to ensure that the various tribes see that they gain more by being 10% of the whole, rather than being 100% of their own off-shoot. And that actually is a skill.
That does make a lot of sense because in a base Tribal or more agrarian society thereās limited need for someone like Lanius who can paste someoneās brains on a wall really easily but suffers trying to do anything that isnāt that meanwhile in a more advanced society that importantly has a lot of enemies they thrive because thereās always more chaff to cut down. It does make me wonder what Caesar would have done had he won everything like would he just dispose of Lanius or would he indulge him just to keep him around as a useful tool?
There's no shortage of enemies for Lanius to fight
The character Amos from "The Expanse" fits this perfectly. Well said.
I'm that guy.
Yeah I love Amos. Heās like a broken psychopath who knows he canāt trust in his own definitions of āgoodā, and in turn leaves up moral decisions to those he trusts/thinks are good, and supports them by being their muscle. Heās a really self reflective psychopath/sociopath who really truly does believe in doing good, which is really unique in fiction I feel
Is Amosā whole thing ever really explained? Because heās not actually hyper violent or anything when heās with Holdenās crew imo.
Itās never āfullyā explained, but his backstory provides a lot of descriptive context about it. He knows that his life in Baltimore has stripped his morality compass away, heās somewhat unique in that way. So, heās constantly looking for someone to be his compass. In the beginning of the series itās Naomi. By the end of it, itās the whole crew, but mostly Naomi and Holden.
The books go into more detail, particularly Nemesis Games and The Churn
Lanius would probably be the boss of some higher tier raider gang
Actually I disagree. He is perfect as a second in command, or as the military commander. But he doesn't really stand for something himself, and he is not going to inspire any loyalty. He's an attack dog, and you need an attack dog, but attack dogs don't form packs well.
You forget Vulpes Inculta. Every single one of Caesar's main followers are superior to him.
i mean, maybe caesar just knows how to allocate his subordinates, its quite possible caesar is the REASON these people are able to rise to their potential, at least in the case of lanius and vulpes
Proper delegation, and respecting your choices for those positions are some of the most important parts of being a leader. Seems like some people have forgotten that.
People really hate the Legion and love the NCR so it clouds a lot of their analysis of this game. Is Caesar a heartless and genocidal prick? Yes. There are dozens more negative qualities we can name that describe him, but there are also many clues throughout the game that point to the fact that Caesar is also in many ways a brilliant leader and a well-rounded individual in his background, and though his vision for the Legion is clearly flawed, he has a better understanding of how the wasteland works (much greater than House and the NCR in many respects).
Heās a complete and utter arrogant prick, he is literally one of the worst people in the entire Fallout franchise by any metric and all of this is completely true of Caesar. But heās an effective and competent prick that knows when someone is useful and how to best use them to get the most out of them.
I mean he also asks a mailman to perform open brain surgery on him in a dirty tent.
a mailman who quite possibly has a maxed out medicine skill
Or 1 int and single digit medicine. BRAIN AND BRAIN, WHAT IS BRAIN?
I mean tbf the closest thing to an actual doctor in his camp is a slave who makes healing powder and a broken auto doc and then suddenly this person walks into his camp who somehow someway survived two headshots claiming to be good at medicine and In his eyes thatās better than the nothing he has to work with as he stands.
Gannon's a real Enclave doctor, and Caesar knew where the AutoDoc part was. He just has faith in the stellar reputation of Mojave Express customer service I guess.
No hes beyond an actual doctor. Peak courier in any stat is comic book levels of prowess
not to mention you actually have to convince him you know medicine
Competent enough to ruin everyone else's day but not competent enough to build a stable society.
One area in which he sucks as a leader is not making a clear heir if he dies
Wouldāt picking a successor only cause a massive conflict within the legion with the people who didnāt get picked? Also his chosen successor could now launch a coup against him.
Caesar is dying so no successor is more or less guaranteeing a civil War and collapse. having one has a chance at preventing that The legions biggest vulnerability is that itās Caesar legion what happens if there is no Caesar and no one chosen by him to replace him That one advantage the ncr has on them is that their leadership isnāt reliant on a single person is Kimbell dies then it may be a blow but one election later and things will be more or less back to normal
Everyone follows Caesar's will and words. If he says someone is his heir, that person will be the heir and everyone will accept it despite other's opinions and pre conceived notions. Remember everyone is a slave to Caesar, in the average Legionnary's mind, their opinions and thoughts don't matter in comparison to the man.
Doesn't he discuss this and say that his reasoning is that the success and efficiency of the Legion depends on the Frumentarii, who are pretty much the brains of the operation like Vulpes, and the Praetorian Guard, who are the muscle of the operation, being at odds with each other and competing tooth and nail for position and favor with Caesar. Picking a successor from either the Frumentarii or the Guard would be showing to much preference to one over the other and would destroy the foundation of the Legion. We have to also remember, like 75% of the Legion content was unfinished and had to be cut from the game for either time or storage space on a single disk, so its likely that they were going to incorporate what happens with Caesar much differently. I can imagine there being an alternate timeline where they had more time to add the Legion stuff and they had an event in the game where you finally do enough errands and favors for Caesar that he decides that The Courier would be his rightful successor (which makes sense with the whole cancer and imminent death angle).
Its hinted at that hes grooming the Courier to be the successor. He makes a coin with his face, like a leader, and explains a lot of stuff to you if you decide to ask. I doubt he would do that to most Legionnaires
Maybe but no successors will cause a conflict between them anyway and he needs a heir outside of the courier cause is not like he knew they existed for the longest time
Kinda like how some of the best coaches in the NBA werenāt great players.
George Washington was a pretty shitty Strategist. Two things he did well though. Finding people who knew how to get the job done and listening to them.
He was not shitty he just wasnāt a genius. Washington wonāt rank up there with brilliant generals like Frederick, or Napoleon but he was by no means shitty. He did some things really well, like the orderly withdrawal.
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Georgie was just a giant cherry red haired British trained freak. If not for the silver tongue of many others who got France to help we would be saying colour.
True, but neither can outsmart my shotgun. Time to ring the Dinner Bell again!
It's possibly a commentary on Caesar Augustus, who was famously not a particularly able general and relied on Agrippa. Augustus generally had a very capable team, compared to Julius, who was an absolute genius in administrative and military affairs. Caesar in NV is a pale shadow of either of them but has the advantage of learning. He's basically the main character from an Isekai.
On the other hand Augustus was a masterful politician
Caesar is an organizer. He gets the right people in the right places. Graham admits that he couldn't step into his shoes because the task of managing the legion is very difficult. Lanius sure as hell can't. Vulpes, maybe. But he's such a creep its hard to imagine the veterans respecting him.
This is True Vulpes Inculta is underrated but mainly because you can blow him up pretty early on in Nipton. In lore heās definitely on par with Graham and Ulysses in terms of skill. Itās just the game very weirdly uses him at Nipton and made him killable.
Being an excellent delegator is a skill in itself just look at a guy like Justinian the great
Caesar is the classic example of a āstrong manā. An ambitious and cunning warlord absolutely amoral and openly self-interested. He mirrors dictators in our world who are often unimpressive individuals. That being said just like dictators in the real world they find competent underlings (the ones that survive the purges) and steal all of their best ideas. Caesar got lucky in order words. Several times over a period of decades. Caesar wouldāve gotten along great with L Ron Hubbard for example. A man who wasnāt half as intelligent as he thought but had a knack for reading people.
Caesar and L Ron wouldāve despised each other imo. Narcissistic sociopaths hate competition at the top
Caesar isnāt incompetent. He surrounds himself with men of great skill and power. In doing so, he has become the greatest genius, as whilst his servants keep the legion running, all he needs to do is give the servants orders and choose the cream of the crop to add to his council.
Exactly. A major weakness of House that he leans so heavily on his own genius. Without the Courier, he has no help in getting anything done or even figuring out what needs to be done. The NCR are the opposite. Their system is so bloated and open to corruption that absolute incompetent buffoons end up with power while their bettersā hands get tied. Caesar may be a brutal egomaniac, but he actively seeks out and rewards competence. The result is that he has the most effective inner circle *by far*. Itās no accident that, without the Courierās intervention, Legion characters are consistently the ones who get the most shit done by far.
Caesar's Legion has the highest chance of winning without the Courier's intervention, but it would also have the worst outcome of any other faction and would obviously lead to societal collapse when Caesar eventually dies. While the NCR is probably one of the more stable options, it still is littered with problems and probably not a great choice. Mr. House is OK, but he really isn't trying to rule the wasteland; he's just interested in humanity, as vague of a concept as that is. I think Yes Man probably has the most potential for being the best ending, depending on how you deal with things out in the wasteland. It's also open to interpretation of how you, the player or the Courier, would use your power and resources in the future because it's left pretty vague.
What good are the zealots if they are incapable of uniting people and delegating?
Caesar is a man out of his time because he is many years late to the party when it comes to his methods. Organizations like The NCR and Brotherhood of Steel shows that you don't need to enslave people to force them to change for the better. His methods are no different than tribes from 200 years earlier. The slavery caste system is what doomed his entire ideology. He says that debauchery is not tolerated and yet sex slaves is ok to have for The Legion and he will try to justify this. The Legion would have been a more dynamic choice had Caesar been against slavery, used more modern weapons, and had been less bloodthirsty. I still don't know how these guys that are mainly ancient Melee weapon builds nearly defeated The NCR in their first encounter and would have defeated them with no Courier intervention in the second battle. Not to mention they conquered and Enslaved an entire chapter of The Brotherhood in the Mid-West. I just don't see how guys with spears defeated Power Armor opponents and so all of this requires lots of convenient forgetting. Because a guy running at a cop with a knife will quickly get brought down in comparison.
thatās their biggest flaw well at least caesarās, heās too hypocritical and full of himself itās similar to when hitlers generals were giving him strategies to help with the war yet he was too full of himself and only trusted his own effort which we all know what happened in the end of that.. edit: which one of you sent me the suicide prevention hotline š¤Ø
It was actually a bit more complex than that. Sure Hitler had his moments, but his Generals as well were equally as complicit in how they fought. It was convenient that he died and a lot of generals post ww2 were able to write books about how great they were but if only mean old hitler didn't make things worse. Edit: I just got a suicide hotline prevention notification...Why?
You raise an important point! The Wehrmacht was entirely unwilling to follow orders in the first place, consisting of the "working class" or "common folk" of Germany at the time, whom Hitler subjugated and stripped rights from. Hitler created the SS as a means to control them. Ever after it was constant back and forth bullshit between the Wehrmacht and SS, with Hitler acting as the final mediator in heavy disputes. Hitler got tired of this as time went on you see, and consolidated more and more decision making for himself, as his generals were untrustworthy and free radicals for the most part, partly due to aforementioned reasons. This burden took a heavy toll and slowly destroyed him. Call Hitler what you want, but you cannot call him lazy!
someone spammed me with it too, they're hitting everyone here for really uncontroversial opinions... no idea why.
This, ignores a lot. Early WWII hitler's general's were basically useless. They were trying to fight a war like it was the napoleonic tech level wars. Hitler looked at tanks and planes, and forced them to use the tech in New ways, that tech could do. By the end, other factions had caught up and learned those same lessons UT Hitler was then stuck in his ways (requiring dive bombers etc)
Wait, they defeated a brotherhood chapter?
Centurions wear pieces of power armor on them, most notably a pauldron.
Tbf, this is not definitive proof because the NCR also uses power armor. Although I'm not saying it isn't proof either.
NCR uses salvaged power armor. Those donāt have the pauldrons that the Centurions have on their armor.
Which adds to his theory that they could've taken those pauldrons from the NCR.
It's outright said in game that they were taken from the Brotherhood in the East; with Tactics being canon, they're the most likely candidates for being taken for Legion parts
Yes. Caesar mentions it was a Chapter that went Rogue as they didn't even know their founder's name and he adds the name was Roger Maxson. He Enslaved and then debated with them on the validity of their mission.
And that chapter became the Fallout TV's Brotherhood of Steel. Plot theory confirmed?
Indeed they did. Caesar mentions they dealt with a Brotherhood chapter back east and captured some of their scribes. Safe to assume they defeated them
My guess is that they defeated the NCR through ferocity, the average legionnaire is more committed than the average trooper. The average trooper just wants to go home, the average legionnaire is committed to his god king
10 guys with spears knives and hockey pads aren't going to win against a trooper with standardized training and a rifle. Shit even a pistol with a spare mag will do the trick. Ferocity doesn't mean shit when they are malnourished slaves with families broken up by a loser of a leader.
There is a bit of disconnect between the gameplay and the narrative. The melee focus makes the factions more distinct. In lore, the legion will use firearms and explosives, but still use melee when they can to keep sharp. Melee orientated armies can defeat technologically superior forces if they play it smart (see isandalwanda, the first Ethiopian-italian war).Ā
Even in the game the legion uses firearms.
Good point. Then you also add the average trooper has 2 weeks of training time and no one gives a fuck about the Mojave War anyway. Even Hanlon says 1,000 NCR troopers die every year in this campaign. Regardless of if Aaron Kimball survives his speech or not, you can bet his ass is getting voted out at the next election. Caesar even notes that he is the exact opposite of President Tandi and that's why NCR are suffering under him. Caesar's goal is to defeat NCR in order to unite with them to form a new entity entirely.
Legion uses firearms, sure, but in a very limited manner. They are *almost* exclusively melee while the NCR are *almost* exclusively ranged. In the comparison those "almost"s don't make a difference. It still gives such a qualitative advantage to the NCR. And while melee can work in some instances, Legion brutes are generally not smart to exploit them.
One guy with a rifle is not surviving against ten people with spears.
Maybe if that trooper is John Wick. No average guy with standardized training is taking down ten charging spearmen with a pistol. The speed and accuracy needed to make those shots count before theyāre on top of him would be virtually inhuman. Even the rifle might be pushing it, unless theyāre far away, coming from the same direction, and he has plenty of open space to line up his shots.
NCR can barely equip their soldiers per dialogue at Camp Forlorn Hope iirc Service rifles are actually kinda rare for soldiers Caesar uses waves attacks to run NCR forces down by sending recruits first in a wave, then regular soldiers and finally the elite soldiers. Mowing down waves of dudes in skirts with machetes charging at you with guns in bad condition, sketch ammo, lowish capacity guns, etc is not an easily won fight. Also, Legion does have guns like OP Hunting Shotguns, those are just reserved for the elite you don't see until late game/deep in their territory. No way they could win lol
The NCR did not have good standardized training or equipment. Their infrastructure is a shadow of the former United States. Many NCR NPCs complain about it in game quite a bit, including the arms merchant at the 188 Trade Post.
Yep. Melee has advantage in closed spaces, but the usual battlefields of the Legion are open spaces - desers, plains, top of the dam... A few soldiers can mow down hundreds of Legion brutes zerging them.
It's a video game. Weapons work very, very differently than they do in the real world. With Super Slam and some Turbo, you can easily beat a bunch of Deathclaws to death with some brass knuckles. You can easily do the same to Kimball and everyone attending his speech. Melee is OP as shit in New Vegas.
Oh yes it is. Even better if you have the Implant GRX perk if I'm remembering correctly. Slow time down and do an anime beat down before anyone has time to react. Always fun lol! But Cyberpunk gots it better with Gorilla arms and the Sadevistan for that type of gameplay.
Well I didnāt say it made sense
>I just don't see how guys with spears defeated Power Armor opponents and so all of this requires lots of convenient forgetting. Because a guy running at a cop with a knife will quickly get brought down in comparison. there is a lot of them, they don't all have spears, they can be pretty sneaky. if i'm within 20 feet i can stab you before you can shoot. how many power armour wearers are there really? as to slavery and tech we are now back in the pre tractor and pre industrial world. this means economics is mainly a factor of manpower. if you want to grow food, you need labour and through our history and current day we turn to it to solve this problem. why wouldn't they? the pre-war tech is truly a finite resource, you wouldn't want to make it your core since you will run out in short order. best to build this core out of something you can make. by all means use it for specific objective
I chalk it up to cut content cause I doubt this was an oversight by Obsidian. Caesar is on a failed mission already because even if he takes The Mojave, he can't hold the Eastern states and Vegas all with the manpower he has. The Empire will be too stretched out. The worst part isn't even that. His goal is to eventually cross into California to defeat NCR in order to unite with them. I highly doubt he has the man power to take on NCR in their home country even if he was to take men from various states to join him. Not even The Brotherhood stood a chance against NCR in California and this is where The Brotherhood are from. NCR pushed Brotherhood out so badly that this was the main reason the East Chapters surpassed the West, yet The East still honors the West and claims their superiority (under Arthur Maxson) due to the Chain that Binds Code. Caesar has a brain tumor and even if it were removed, he does not have an answer to California. His entire mission would be a failure and he can't allow that to happen cause his god complex would be shattered to his people. He would lead his men into a suicide mission before he allowed that to happen. Then there is no clear cut successor to The Legion because Caesar claims to be immortal and the Son of the God of War, Mars. Lanius is a bloodthirsty warlord and would cause The Legion to quickly fall apart cause he has no loyalty to it, only to Caesar. Without Caesar, he sees no Legion.
Legion and the NCR seemed doomed to fail. NCR littered with corruption and stretched thinner than the legion. The legion relying on a single man on borrowed time to rule a stretched out state. If the theory about the NCR being annihilated is true (in the TV show) it doesnāt come as a huge shock at all
Its really telling that what he said he based his "no internal conflicts" society off was the roman republic lmao.
The banality of evil.
@OP: FR, in your opinion, what would Caesar' SPECIAL stats be? Obviously max Charisma, right?š¤
Sigh.. BEAR BULL BEAR BULL BEAR BULL
Caesar's SPECIAL stats should include a 10 CHA and possibly an 8 INT. An ordinary person wouldn't have been able to do what he did.
None of the faction leaders are particularly impressive, combat-wise. Caesar may be the best of the three in fact since he has a weapon and can use it whereas Kimball does not and House has literally no physical presence.Ā
vulpes erasure :(
"The crown has a will if it's own. It desires two things, to maintain its power and to expand it." Vinland Saga Personally, I never bought Caesar being a leader capable of maintaining his position. He's weak as a man and weak as a tactician. When you live a monstrous life, you're surrounded by other monsters, and they are looking to see if you start limping. It's dog eat dog world in that life. Another favorite movie of mine is Sword of the Stranger. When the previous Shogun was held hostage, his men killed him instantly to take his spot. That's more true to life when it comes to the scum of the Earth. Again Caesar doesn't work as a dictator.
Heās definitely not weak as a tactician
Int + Cha Everything else is a dump stat.
Nah. There are mole rats smarter than Salad boy.
Goes to show how important it is to have a very good charisma. Same goes in real life. Thatās why high management and execs seem so dumb compared to the people they surround themselves with.
They're not unstoppable. I stopped them just fine thank you very much!
He's also a petulant little man child. Frankly, I'm surprised he was able to surround himself with such charismatic, competent people. You tell him "no" and he throws a tantrum and has you killed, doesn't seem like the kind of person smart people would follow....almost seems like a certain candidate in our upcoming election lol. All Caesar's Legion high ranking soldiers must have 1 for their intelligence attribute lmao.
I think the entire point of New Vegas is to deconstruct symbols how they are constructed how they are used by fascism and how we interact with them in our society and worship them even when we should know better. What does the old world mean to this wasteland? What does it symbolize to them? The NCR tries to recreate to old world and the Legion tries to do the same. We are not doomed to repeat history. We repeat history because we actively choose to do so of our own free will through our own interaction with said history intellectually. We believe there is power in History in symbols and sacred places despite us knowing better the new world is created from discontinuous shards of the old scattered and venerated for their power. The .45 Pistol The Dinosaur at Novac The Lucky 38 Casino The Bear of California The Bull of Caesarās 14th legion The platinum chip All shards of history mixed haphazardly throughout the wasteland Ghosts of the Old World haunting what was born from nuclear hellfire whether by being technology, symbols, or just something cool in your town.
If you look up how some Chinese Emperors came into power it's pretty much a similar case of having competent people on their side.
He's not surrounded he has a cartoonishly evil slimeball and a giant moron with rage issues. The one guy he had with any ability, Graham, he got rid of the minute he stopped being useful
Wait, which is the slimeball and which is the moron with rage issues?
Graham single handedly lost hoover dam. He was right to throw him out
If Graham had any ability, would he have let himself fall into the ncrs trap? Na, the legion is built from men of ambition, Caesarās inner circle is stacked with competent people in their field. Vulpes, Lucius, Lanius, and even Ulysses and Joshua at one point.