Why Caesar's Legion Always Wins
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- In this video, we analyze the military power and position of everyone's favorite Fallout: New Vegas antagonist, Caesar's Legion, leading up to the Second Battle for Hoover Dam.
This video is a remaster of the very first video uploaded to TheNeoCypher RUclips channel in celebration of our one-year anniversary. You can view the original video here: • Why Caesar's Legion Wi...
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it actually makes sense in terms of the available quests for each faction, on the legion side most of the quests are you trying to weaken the enemy to ensure an even more decisive victory. Whereas on the NCR side most of the quests are you trying to strengthen the NCR, because they're just not strong enough to fight off the legion at the beginning of the game.
Exactly!
Honestly, the NCR would clap the legions ass if they sent their whole weight on them. It's pretty well stated how they are getting little support because the mojave conflict Is not really popular back in California. But if they lost Hoover dam, the NCR would definitely get angry and crush the legion
Yeah, the NCR is desperately trying to reinforce their skeleton crews on a front that does not command their whole attention. You have to remember that Hoover Dam is a secondary objective for the entire NCR, while it's the entire and only goal for the whole of the Legion. Caesar is throwing too much at one thing, and the NCR is trying to win an exhibition match for a two outta three.
@@M4teo.They have a beaurocratic nightmare back home, a loss at the dam would severely demoralize them, it's stated they need the electricity, and they would lose a great deal of manpower. Not to mention Vegas and it's surroundings provide an abundance of advanced tech. The Legion would also seize NCR stockpiles bolstering their own reserves.
There are also many elements that are never fleshed out because the Legion was saved for last in development. Like for instance their terrifying cyber dogs out of Denver. Rex was supposed to be one of many. I'm guessing one problem was they were too OP. Another may have been scripting. Having a million Rexes running around chasing down anything they detect like Rex does would probably cause a lot of crashes.
In universe though they do have hordes of them, and a wave of terrifying metal cyber dogs would break almost any line. Even seasoned veterans might go into a panic if they were hit with something like that.
@@M4teo. Play the game, learn the lore, the NCR is not invincible.
Incredible how easily the Legion can be defeated by 1 Lobotomized Anarcho-Courier armed with a golf club & Psycho. No one is safe.
🤣
To be fair;
So can every other faction.
To be fair, could you do any better?
The ego takes are always the funniest, for every game like this
you do not win in a fight with a drugged up psyco mailman
Their intelligence agency was insane, their ability to infiltrate was on par with the Institute.
Even if Caesar wins the 2nd Battle of Hoover Dam, without Courier intervention, he'd die. And Lanius would be in charge of the Legion. As Graham said, nobody can rule the Legion after Caesar. It will turn on itself and die. The NCR doesn't have to win Hoover Dam, they just have to survive long enough for the Legion to implode.
No he wouldn't. peeps love to have this idea that because the courier does something that it means they're the only one who could've done it and that the result is a failure otherwise. you can look at president Kimball's own assassination which is a quest a legion courier can do but still happens no matter what route the courier go, Kimball is killed without a NCR courier and Yes Man will even mention it happened. on the other hand, No mention of Caesar being dead ever happens in other playthroughs if the courier doesn't go and kill him themselves. Caesar isn't an idiot, peeps just like to misinterpret his beliefs and how resourceful he's willing to be.
@@Moverboy Caesar's not an idiot, but he's 100% toast without the Courier. He has a brain tumor, and the only place with the parts for his Auto Doc is Vault 34. He would never let a Legionnaire visit there for the same reason he would never let them in the Securitron bunker. Plus, he was keeping his condition a secret. And nobody in the Legion has proper medical training and most likely wouldn't be able to diagnosis the tumor. Caesar has intentionally stopped his people from getting proper modern medical knowledge, and without that, he's dead. Sure, Kimball would die, but he'd just be replaced in another election. If Caesar dies, his Legion implodes on itself.
The NCR can't win the second battle in the first place without the Courier themselves, what mental hurdles are you trying to jump through, because there's no point
The Legion doesn't need the courier to carry the entire faction, unlike the NCR since the beginning of that faction's quest line
@@Moverboy So something will happen that will save Caesar if the courier doesn't exist to help him, but the NCR won't do anything to save themselves if the courier doesn't exist to help them?
@@onion599 NCR cant do anything, Caesar literally knows the location of the Auto Doc part he needs, he can acquire it after conquering New Vegas.
I fully believe that people underestimate Lanius. He absolutely is a brute to the core, but he's not stupid and not oblivious. When you confront him with the knowledge he'll lose momentum after the Dam he not only acknowledges what you say as true but does so by comparing it to a previous event where, bssed on how he says it, he was already starting to question the methods that almost cost them that battle. That he was already thinking about that tells me all it would have taken for him to reach that conclusion would be a repeat of the event, after which he'd stop and wonder about it.
When he secceeds Caesar, and I believe he would after a period of shock and doubt he would, I think he would become exactly what the Legion needs to advance. While he doesn't have the charisma to hold the Legion together like Caesar had, he has iron fisted will and terror. His rule would be a tyranny, but it would be of a kind that would turn the Legion into a more self-sufficient nation - ironically a factor which Caesar ignored in pursuit of his own glory. In fact, such tyrannical control might even be enough to prevent or mitigate the infighting of the Legion post conquest of the NCR (though I don't think they'd succeed at that). With that accomplished, there's no telling how much more powerful they would have become.
Yes, the Legion likely would have failed in claiming the NCR, but they would have emerged a greater power for it. Caesar is actually the Legion's Achilles heel in the end.
hes a moron a mailman tells him that hes not going to win because hes underprepared and he gives up because hes right
Veni Vidi Vici
In Hoc Signo Taurus Vinces
The NCR is doomed ether way the battle goes. They can’t take advantage of a victory and likely would struggle to retreat in a Legion victory. The NCR is also economically tied to the battle. If they lose they will need to conscript more soldiers and print more money. The Legion does not have to kill the NCR, inflation will do it just as fine.
Absolutely
Just like modern day USA. printing itself into oblivion.
Not much different from the legion to be fair. If they win and caesar survives, he will -try- to take...California?? The NCR didn't really supply and help the forces at the mojave because the war wasn't that popular among Californian citizens and politicians. But if they lost, and caesar went to their doorstep, doesn' matter how badass or cool the legion Is, theres nothing they can do against the full NCR army. If the NCR has a population of 700000, they surely have a massive army.
@@M4teo. Good point, but the NCR was committed to the Mojave Campaign. 2 week training period for soldiers and an inflation economy to keep the campaign alive comes to mind. I am not saying they were fully committed but I am saying that they would have to overextend themselves to the point that something is going to collapse. The NCR is strong but Caesar has prepped his legion far too much in advance. This isn’t 1941 Germany invading the Soviet Union. This is 1940 Germany invading France. The NCR is so torn apart by political infighting and economic hardship not mentioning culture issues with annexing all of California in 100 years or the ever present Brotherhood threat. The NCR is just in a really, really bad place. One last thing everyone points out Legion falling back into tribes but no one mentions NCR could do the same thing.
@@dapperbunch5029 i find this "this isn't 1941" mention funny since i've seen a couple of TTRPG playtest campaigns set in the same timeline handle such an invasion exactly like that with the Necropolis+Boneyards being the equivalent of stalingrad.
First campaign is the players being a sniper team that ends up killing the legion Courier in the Necropolis and the 2nd playtest campaign being a tank+infantry campaign with the players manning a biodiesel powered tank near the boneyards. The tank team only starts out with solid shot shells since the guys they replaced spent all the good APDS shells on the first wave of shitty bulldozers the legion used as improvised tanks.
i forget what TTRPG system the first campaign was playtesting but the 2nd one was running "Chariots of steel" which is a few editing passes away from being ready to be released.
Honestly the idea of people so high on their own farts tanking bullets with mere football gear is unrealistic to say the least.
I would say Ulysses kills them both, but, the courier is he one that freed ED-E, so that doesn't happen, Elijah doesn't get his toys, the think tank stays looped, and the white legs lose a war of attrition
Not if my chem addicted courier has anything to say about it.
If there was no courier it's possible that Elijah could have accessed the sierra madre getting access to the gas technology and hologram guards that can't be harmed. He could have single handedly taken on both factions in a way that the courier couldn't. Don't forget about the tunnlers and that they supposedly will attack the Mojave.
What makes you think Legionaries are highly trained? Their whole shtick is that they nearly won at Hoover Dam because of overwhelming numbers and unwavering dedication.
They are highly trained and disciplined. You can see that everywhere you look. The single advantage that NCR has in terms of its infantry is that basically all of them have semi-auto rifles, while the Legionaries are mostly working with lever actions and machetes.
Legionaries are trained since childhood, you hear about this from multiple NPCs and can see an instructor watching over a few children at the fort.
The NCR on the other hand, when you visit camp golf you meet the misfits, a squad with virtually no training or cohesion, and many NPCs in the NCR military talk about how they're being sent raw recruits that aren't even supplied with body armour.
The NCR had better technology, the advantage of a dug in, fortified position and the fact that the legion's only way to assault hoover dam is running across the top of a narrow and exposed dam. Snipers, and men with machine guns would mow down the legion (and that is what happened)
@@doghat1619 I mean, isn't it pretty much also directly stated with the misfits that all the NCR forces being sent down into the mojave are the equivalent of the reserves or state guard? And that the majority of the NCR's professional contract soldiers are in the north or in baja?
@@Randomusername56782 Yeah, I believe Chief Hanlon mentions how the majority of their power armor troops and a lot of the rangers are back in the NCR heartlands protecting Brahmin Baron's lands from non-existent raiders.
Hey , looked everywhere in the comments and description but couldnt find it but what mod do you use for the better looking legion models planning to do a playthrough on legion and id love to have it!
We are Legion - Dragbody
Good luck! 👍
I think people don’t give lanius enough credit, he’s built up the whole game as a mindless animal but he’s the only person in the whole legion who sees a conquest of california is impossible and that the legion just can’t handle it
I think it comes down to House vs. the Legion ultimately. Despite how it looks I don’t think it’s an overwhelming victory for the Legion, they will take losses from the fight. If House plays his cards right (pun intended) and if he gets the platinum chip I see him pretty effectively mopping up the rest of the Legion and securing Hoover Damn for New Vegas.
lol not really house didn’t even know legion was in new Vegas
Sadly your headcannon isn't possible. 'Benny could hold the platinum chip at gunpoint' in House's own words.
House cannot upgrade the securitrons without the Chip, which Benny goes to the fort with and gets captured. When Caesar has the chip, he has complete leverage over house.
I imagine House would deploy chemical weapons if the Legion pushed into the Mojave without the NCR to resist.
@@freddiedavies6415 Is Benny becoming an idiot all of a sudden? Even Yes-Man would tell him he's stupid to rush inside the Fort.
I dont get it. Caesar has no line of sucession and he's slated to die during the events of the game. This has fractured many larger, more sophisticated, and better organized empires in the past. They might be able to ruin the NCR, but it does not mean they 'win' by any metric. They too would falter and fail, and their territories would fall into utter lawlessness akin to the bronze age collapse. The many gangs and poorly assimilated tribes would nip and tear at 'the bull's' dying frame, maybe making a new society among its bones.
At absolute best, the legion would get new leadership and focus their effort in an entirely different direction like rome did dozens of times after their leaders changed. The mojave campaign would be an on-and-off hobby of the legion, like gaul or persia was for actual rome. I don't see this happening without some sort of senate structure or a strong, influential 'in-group'. Generally when a totalitarian dictator dies, their little kingdom either shatters or completely loses focus. Caesar is on campaign right now, effectively. If he's still the ONE person running the empire hundreds of miles to his east without a support structure, then he's setting himself up for something akin to the era after Alexander the Great died, but even more pronounced.
I think its impossible to analyze the legion from a strategic perspective because we're given almost no information about their political structure. As it stands, they're a very pointy house of cards that will paper-cut you to the bone, but will not survive to see your wound heal.
You don’t need to remove Courier Six from the situation as frankly it’s likely the cannon path given what we learn about Courier Six.
the amount of copium from NCR fans in this comment section, lmao.
I mean if you go to a NCR video praising them you find Legion fanboys malding, people take the politics of a game way to seriously. Its like they are in the faction now or something its weird.
@@That-guy-there1politics in the game are analogous to politics irl, just shows they wrote good factions even though being a bunch of liberals
TL;DW:
The bad guys would win if the protagonist didn't do something about it.
Can you imagine how bad story telling it would be if the side you are expected to sympathize with was ahead and had nothing to worry about besides making the upcoming battle a little easier?
Not everybody sympathizes with the NCR, it's easy to see the problems with them and want to side with House or go independent even if you don't like the Legion. I never liked NCR, they are just following the footsteps of the blatantly evil and massively corrupt pre-war Fallout US government.
Then don't make sides you are expected to sympathize with, unless you are weak minded.
I feel the legoin would collapse in on itself after the 2nd hoover dam battle. If you kill ceaser and talk to Joshua Graham he brings up a valuable point is that with the ceaser gone its just a walking corpse of a faction. They will fall eventually because the Legate Lanuis only sees war. And internal conflicts will brew. Now why would this all be important, because ceaser doesn't die? Ceaser has a brain tumor and without the couriers help his death is inevitable. I'm not saying that the ncr would win either they both have very big flaws.
And to be fair, even if The Courier fixes Caesar’s Cancer, the surgeon Arcade Ganon commits suicide and Caesar dies, only years later. So even treatment doesn’t totally eliminate his cancer, it just puts it into remission and delays his death.
This is in the epilogue.
To be fair, I have to look at this canonically and the real canary in the coalmine is Courier 6 him/her self. If the Courier sides with the Legion then yes a Legion victory is always assured but the same can be said with Yes Man, House and the NCR. Unfortunately you also have to keep in mind that Ulysses is absolutely right that upon reaching the Pacific, the Legion would eventually turn on and start eating itself like a typical raider force does. A slave army is only viable by how much territory it can consume so unless the Pacific ocean has its own version of Atlantis the Legion would eventually wither away and die only to be supplanted by another power. Thucydides Trap in no short of term. I doubt a variant of the NCR would survive a post 2nd Battle of Hoover Dam Legion victory but more than likely some other faction takes over as a dominant role in the West. The Legion NEEDS to consume in order to stay alive and that's its main Achilles heal.
I believe Caesar intends to reform the Legion to prevent exactly that from happening, he says it in his dialogue, that once he conquers California, he intends to reform the Legion, taking the best parts of the NCR and the Legion, and forming them all into one powerful empire. He wants to create a country, a true nation, not just a Legion, a roaming army. The only problem is that Caesar will likely die before that happens, and only he (or maybe the courier??) will ever be able to achieve something that ambitious. The Legion is a very young nation, younger than the NCR, and is open to change, but the longer Caesar waits to reform, the longer the Legion has to destroy itself. It's also very unlikely the Legion will ever reach the pacific, just saying. But then again, it's very unlikely for the NCR to reach even Flagstaff, the Legions capital. The only way either nation is being destroyed is through internal conflict or some sort of main protagonist mucking everything up.
@@generaltobias3777 But due to the rules and laws the NCR set up for themselves, they technically would remain unless it's a big enough corruption scandal. The Legion on the otherhand is pretty much a Nomadic Tribe, a huge one but still nomadic nonetheless so any internal strife will completely shift and change the core ideas that Caesar may or may not have had with his main force. We can already see something similar to that with Lanius himself. Given how strength is pretty much praised as the best trait to have in Caesar's legion, once Caesar himself dies a strong leader WILL emerge. But they will only be strong in might, and not so much in form or function, which would gradually lead to even more decay within the bull.
Hate the bureaucracy all you want, but all that rules lawyering is the NCR's strong point and one of their pillars for being able to even last this long outside of Tandi's death.
You don't understand, yet you have the answer in your comment.
The Legion has no intent on staying that way, just like every Civilization, it will evolve into something greater through the lessons they've learned with difficulties, slavery, and war.
Legion, will be the best outcome for America once the Enclave has fallen.
What Legion need is a god damn sheild
Based Legion tactics, but i like Mr.Houses ending.
Meanwhile caesar predicted its own fall
We are the Legion!
I was gonna go at you with geo politics but the NCR soldiers out there only had two weeks of BCT? ONLY TWO WEEKS? Thats insane!
I always thought two months bare minimum... and that plus the lack of discipline and cohesion.
NCR isn't weak against the Legion.
They're weak when against the Legion, Mr House, and the Raiders of the Mojave. Cesars Legion doesn't have to worry about much of anything immediately but the NCR, with their overall presence minimal in the Mojave
As a kid in high school, i choose the NCR. As an adult, i got a job and bought an bicycle. I didnt want it getting stolen so i bought an bike lock. MF out there stole my seat, just took the seat and the pole, so i couldn't just get a new seat, i also had to buy the pole. Shit like that makes me join the Legion
Nah without the courier benny or house uses the platinum chip to win the battle. The upgraded securitrons from the strip are enough to defeat the legion and the subsequently weakened ncr, and then since nobody destroyed the securitrons under the fort they can still be activated, allowing them to permanently deal with any faction that tries to come back.
Sir, you wear football equipment as armor
Without salvation from the Courier the NCR is running back West to California. Personally I cannot like the Legion but I acknowledge how competent they are.
Exactly!
It Is highly stated how the conflict of the mojave isn't that popular among Californians. If they lost, the NCR would truly provide suficient forces and resources to deal with the legion. Since aparently caesar wants to go to California too.
@@theneocypher indeed
@@M4teo. oh when I think of the Mojave campaign in think of the Vietnam war the NCR soldiers are the representation of the US soldiers stationed there. The soldiers are unmanned, out gunned and unequipped. They are tired and wanna head the fuck homes
@@kpat5655america was not unequipped, being outgunned didn't matter because it was so much more advanced, being outnumbered also didn't matter (look at casualties)
america was kicking butt militarily
My question, though, is what happens after.
It is very unlikely that the Legion roll over a Camp Golf headed up by Ranger Hanlon and serviced by Veteran Ranger units. I think in the scenario of a Legion victory at Hoover Dam, Hanlon's greatest obstacles are actually taken care of for him. These being the poor leadership of the nepotistic General Oliver, and the NCRs government's kidd glove handling of the Legion Threat prior to the second battle of Hoover Dam.
Just as Lanius learned from the defeat of his predecessor, I think Hanlon and the NCR will do the same. I think in the long game, the Legion ultimately suffers from the deteriorating mental stability of Caesar, and the subsequent psychosis of Lanius, who rules through strength and will be much more of a despot than Caesar could have ever been.
I think after Hoover Dam, the NCR affords more resources to the Mojave and installs Hanlon as its new General. Veterans of the Mojave Campaign regroup and ultimately, the NCR takes the Dam back, and becomes the Mojave's final ruler.
Then Maxon and the Eastern Brotherhood of Steel bring Liberty Prime in and kill everyone as revenge for the destruction of the Mojave Chapter. The end.
Bear bull bull bear, bear bull bear. 🦬🐻
Precisely
Too bad Todd Howard hates New Vegas and New Vegas fans and he'll make the canon ending lame otherwise this would be great.😊
It isn’t conceivable that the NCR would win the second battle for hoover dam with the couriers aid
Ave amicus
Ave!
in a moment you say a keyword "if the courier joins" no. any faction with the courier wins, besidees you are leaving behind the fact that ulysses will obliterate both, if not for courier intervention, good video, but too many "If"'s
event without that, House already foreseen almost all outcomes.
I appreciate more people like you understanding this. The reality is, everyone basically stands still until the Courier nudges them in any direction. The NCR is gridlocked by politics. House is gridlocked by his lack of securitron armies. The Legion is gridlocked by so many fucking variables in general that need an agent to actually take care of them. The only thing off the top of my head I think they could do on their own is assassinate Kimball, but that's judging off the NCR version of it where they're inadequate at stopping the assassins on their own. I could be wrong in that part.
The point I'm making is, legion fanboys are fucking dorks. No, the cosplaying raider faction cannot sweep New Vegas on their own. They are an existential threat in their violence, but they are not going to just steamroll New Vegas.
@@lainamitclaire spy in the strip, spy in mccarran, fiends, omertas, and dominance of all of the southern Mojave. Legion is on a warpath and you’re just huffing ncr copium.
What mod is this for the legion?
As scary as living within the legion sounds arizona really is one of the most crime free areas in the wasteland, as long as you follow caesars rules.
massa doesnt hit me when i behaves
@@redlight3932
I would starve without massa, Deathclaws would rip me apart without massa, Mutants and ghouls would eat me without massa, raiders would cap me and mi family without massa.....
What's the point of freedom if you're not free to live anyways? Might as well stay alive and be called a slave than be a free man without freedom.
Amazing job Neo keep them coming and I love the intro
Thanks! Will do!
@@theneocypheramazing centurion and I’ll will keep watching them
Kenturion?
Bruh
Well at least now we know why the NCR are so weak during New Vegas.
Legion=🤡🤡🤡
NCR=🤷♂️
House=👴
BOS=😎
Railroad=🥸
Institute=🫥
Minutemen=👁️👄👁️
Fallout NV larpers on their way to glorify the one faction that the writers literally designed to be seen as senselessly evil.
I was thinking "why the community likes being a legion"
Honestly, one would think that there would be more groups like the Legion in a post-post-apocalypse.
Completely agree!
@@theneocypher After all, the biggest threats to the settled civilizations always came from the barbaric unifiers, be it merchants from the civilized societies or fur-cladded chieftains
there were. the legion absorbed them.
@@kabbablabba4073 fair enough
@@psychokozel9916well, there are. There's slavers in fallout 3 and theres various radiant Quests in fallout 4 that involves kiddnaping. The pitt and nuka world raiders have slaves. Idk about fallout 1 & 2 since i haven't played them. Almost all raiders like to "decor" their territory with corpses, like the legion. Raiders live by stealing/intimidating settlements. Just like the legion. The legion survives by raiding and asimilating tribes, just like an average Raider group. Oh would you look at that? The legion Is just a glorified Raider group
I love how people say the legion doesn’t use modern tech while they were literally buying energy weapons from the van graffs.
Small scale, basically like SpecOps forces. The majority of legion goons you encounter use melee weapons. If it wasn't for plot armor, the legion wouldn't be much of a threat to an organized military like the NCR.
I just wish that both the Legion and NCR could not just lose, but be absolutely crushed. They both suck.
Still, only the higher ups of the army get actual weapons (such as Assasins, Vulpes' group and Centurions)
Furthermore, most Legion soldiers only use guns they have looted in real time from winning an encounter against other NPCs which is highly unlikely given their intentionally poor weaponry, only the big fish get the guns, let alone the energy weapons.
@@RandomNoNamePT which is the way it should be.
You can absolutely "win" if you have 20 idiots with baseball bats charging one or two NCR troops.
But the guns go to the higher ups. You wouldn't want newly absorbed tribes getting guns....
@@SCAR16L "The majority of legion goons you encounter use melee weapons."
That's actually a good strategy in the long term. Caesar dresses it up as it being heroic and visceral, more manly, that sort of thing. However, there's something bigger happening. The Legion have a constant influx of subjugated tribal warriors. They're not lacking for manpower, so they can afford to separate the wheat from the chaff by sending them out underequipped and seeing how well they handle that.
If nine out of ten Legion recruits die trying to fight NCR patrols, then the remaining one-tenths are practically Lucius/Lanius/Vulpes tier. They have to be either very strong, very smart, or both to survive their first few raids into NCR territory. So the ones who come back? They're going to be as good as NCR rangers.
@@vulpesinculta3238
The Legion are rapidly running out of possible conscripts though. They’re throwing away plenty of potentially skilled future soldiers for often minimal gain. Sure, most of the soldiers that get killed from this melee-centric martial style weren’t going to be great, but some definitely will be. And there’s no guarantee the poor soldiers aren’t the lucky survivors, either. They are burning manpower and their future leadership.
Legion would no doubt have won in Vegas, but not due to NCR being weak as an entity, but rather because NCR's Mojave force is understaffed precisely because of supply problems. People like to picture NCR as some pacifist all-about-democracy faction, but truth is that if they had more men available in the mojave, then groups like Great Khans or Fiends would have been ruthlessly exterminated, as was done with raider tribes in California who were pushed all the way to Vegas. In this situation, the intake tunnels are Legion's only ace, and any push in the open fields against House's robots, Boomers or Brotherhood would have been extrmely costly and occupation would likely result in loss of key positions in the east. That all without questioning Legion's ability to stay united after Caesar dies.
All excellent points!
The legion wins in New Vegas because the NCR doesn't care. They've shown they're capable of putting a force in the Mojave.
But they're barely fielding a force in the Mojave because of over confidence, they're to assured of themselves
So yes legion wins in NV but they're definitely not knocking the NCR out, of anything they just piss off the bear
The NCR literally doesn't care. Hanlon states they lose 1,000 soldiers each year just trying to hold the Mojave. It seems they only care about having a presence in the area to have access to the Strip instead of actually securing it.
I think a lot of people overlook Hilderns dialogue. The NCR as it stands is going to face food shortages and famines within 10 years, if they lose the dam they lose a significant source of clean water and energy. This will cut down their agricultural output and compound the issue; sure the legion might not survive Caesars death (unless Lanius or the Courier become the legitimate heir), but the NCR will also face an economic and social crisis within the next decade at most if they lose.
@@GateCaptainidk about that, for one thing the greatest unifier is a common enemy , and the legion would become that common enemy if they managed to conquer the Mojave, and while losing it would suck, it wouldn't kill them, at the same time I wouldn't trust the famine thing automatically, the only thing hinting towards that are the words of 1 asshole scientist who lies to you
Given the hierarchy of Caesar's legion, Lanius lacks the emotional ability to effectively rule as Caesar for a long period. However Vulpes Inculta would be able to serve incredibly well compared to his adversaries, he fought on the field, as an agent, understood the mindset of an average traveler, as well as understanding the reasoning for better weaponry, from lasers, mines, etc.
But there's a dialogue of Vulpes expressing his concerns that Lanius may disband the Frumentarie
I don't think anybody could hold the legion together for more than a century after Caesar's death except for maybe the courier, mostly because the people follow Caesar alone
@@mado-wh4jvYes I am aware of the line which is what I was stating he wouldn't last as long as Caesar. He was suited as a Field General, not a strong leader. Something Vulpes understood well.
@@thehivemind8576Caesar's legion would be a council of generals. Lanius performed in the Field General, Vulpes is an excellent choice for being a Caesar one of the best choices on that. Other characters could perform it as well however he was one of the best for it. Since he thought methodically.
@@mado-wh4jvVulpes could kill Lanius in his sleep and declare himself Caesar
NCR quests: " help us courier, your our only hope and you have to do everything because were so inept at the most basic stuff"
Legion quests: "were already gonna fuck em up pretty easy, but hey if you want to kick the carcas before it rots, be our guest."
That shot of the centurion and the veteran legionary running on the dam is really cool.
Thanks!
You forgot to mention the lone Khan terrorizing the refugee camp which further demoralizes the NCR. The NCR just doesn't have anything going in their favor.
Aside from an industrial base, a logistics system, and, once the war progresses farther west, defense of their homes and families, rather than just wanting to kill, rob, enslave, etc?
Both the Legion and NCR suck, and both deserve to be destroyed, but the NCR has the advantage in every category except melee combat.
Damn it feels dirty to say anything in defense of the NCR.
I love how it has been years since the release of Fallout New Vegas. But it is still been discussed till today just shows how well written and good it was
I haven't pooped
Granted that goes for alot of games
Not really, people just have nothing better to do and the Fallout fanbase is obsessive
The same videos have been made over and over and over again all with the same points
@@johnclay2716well fallout is a genre like the metro games, stalker, etc but with rpg elements and story which make it fun. but i play it for the bugs and glitches, the music slaps ngl but other than that fallout 3 is peak. fnv has the better music imo
The legion would never be able to invade California proper. Think about it: It's repeatedly stated that the NCR's main forces are in the north and down in Baja, not in the Mojave, which is seen as a backwater post.
The NCR managed to halt the legion, who took forever to recover from the innitial setback due to logistical issues. Now stretch those supply lines through the mountains of California, and closer to the NCR homeland, and you'll see the main army of the NCR slamming into them on home turf with much shorter logistical lines.
Also, long term, the Legion isn't sustainable. They will constantly have to worry about slave revolts (not unlike Sparta with the Helots) and the problem of being spread across an extremely large area.
Could they take the Mojave? Probably. Could they take California? Not a chance.
the explosive collars exist because of the chance slave revolts. If you are constantly worried about your head getting propelled into the sun by C4, I don't think the concept of a revolt is too handsome
Whenever Sallow or "Lanius" mouth off about conquering California I think it's hilarious. My brother in Atom, no, that's how you discover that you're Hannibal and the OTHER guy is Scipio. You run an army of tribals with no connection to the lands you conquer except the ones you've severed, you've been at this for only one generation. Sit down
They don't have to invade California. NCR will fall apart after the loss of Hoover Dam and the Mojave. The economy will sink rapidly. In the game, NCR is already desperate economically. And losing the war will cause more trouble in California. You are gonna have New Reno, Arroyo, the Hub, Vault City and other big cities going against the state and declaring independence, causing total civil war within the NCR main lands. Caesar, If he survives, will send in the Frumentarii to aid the revolting nations and fasten the progress of NCR's downfall. When NCR falls apart, they will move in and capture every state one by one. The Legion is the black hole. It is unstoppable. It doesn't end with Caesar. Someone will always takeover.
"They will constantly have to worry about slave revolts." No, not really. You see, everyone in the Legion is a slave and they are willingly following Caesar. He has thousands of men at his disposal, ready to die for him. The punishments are far worse than any possible death. No one is going to revolt. It is a Hollywood theme.
Add regular revolts into the mix as well. Caesar’s whole “obliterate the past identity” thing isn’t even working. Half the legion people you can talk to still have their old culture and identify with it.
I don't think it really sunk in just how screwed the ncr were until my last playthrough. I was doing a house aligned playthrough and I was stunned by all the tactics and moves the legion had made. Without the courier they would've dominated the ncr and the mojave
its written that way otherwise it wouldn't be a fair fight and noone would want to play
@@redlight3932it’s written as a tale of a states rise, height, and fall. In New Vegas. The NCR was falling apart. The Legion is gunna fall apart once that tumor takes out Caesar.
You know how a game is an all-time classic? Its been almost 14 years since it realeased and is still talk about the factions within it, and i'm willing to bet it would still be in another 16 years from now on
New Vegas is older now than Fallout 1 was when NV released!
Very well done, loved the opening. Actually gave me chills.
I think the difference between the factions is best summarized by their quests. The legion have you assist ongoing, successful missions like captain Curtis. By contrast the ncr need you to get them food that won't make people sick and train soldiers. Nevermind their complete operational failures.
Thank you so much! I am so glad that my intro gave you chills! That is what I was going for 😁
@@theneocypherLoved how you layered their voices. It sold the idea that they were legion. They were One.
@@theneocypheraw yeah. Intro went unbelievably hard.
I said this many of months ago, Please don't stop creating content like I did over 11 years ago. Progression is slow but your content is amazing and you'll soon gain the recognition you deserve!
Thank you so much! Don’t worry, I’m in this for the long haul 😉
Considering in gameplay the amount of Legion inflitration the player can see is limited to Col Hsu in Camp McCarran, would've been pretty cool if after reaching a high enough reputation you can get infiltration quests to sabotage NCR locations like camp golf, forlorn hope, or the numerous amount of ranger stations and NCR emplacements throughout the map
There is a Mission from Dead Sea to clear out Forlorn Hope prior to the endgame. But he gets pissy if you do it because he wanted them there, to continue losing morale and draining resources.
I'd recommend Legion Quests expanded mod.
@@CosmicFreedoms He doesn't get mad, he just laments he can't psychologically weaken them anymore, and even tells Caesar Forlorn Hope is free to take.
The Legion always wins because we grind while NCR sleeps. Stay fit, Amicus.
You definitely aint fit
@@rulingmoss5599 he is fit, I am fit. You are either fat or skinny. Easy prey.
@@rulingmoss5599 Typical NCR dog.
Monkeys with melee weapons cannot defeat regular army with military factories and mass production of fire arms)
@@НатанКанава
Medium and high-level Legion troops have better guns than all the NCR except ranger vets. I'll take 12.7mm SMG's, assault carbines, thermic lances and super sledges over all the service rifles and combat knives in the world.
While I agree that the courier’s absence would mean a straight forward battle between the NCR and Legion results in a Legion victory, I think it’s very likely that Mr. House continues to pursue the platinum chip in the weeks leading up to the battle through more hired help, which would sway the battle in the NCRs favor if successful. The real issue however is the future of the Legion. Without Courier intervention, Caesar does not have the tumor removed in time, it is heavily implied that he’s been ignoring it too long and has been unable to get the autodoc back up and running. Caesar’s death, as House and Joshua Graham predict, will mean the fall of the Legion through in fighting at the top, and Lanius’s ineffectiveness as a leader outside of combat. So while I do think the Legion wins assuming House is not successful, even if they do they’re doomed and would likely fracture and lose the Mojave back to the NCR shortly thereafter.
Most of the non-Legion leaders understand this. They know that Caesar is Legion, and that without him, it doesn't matter that they win, since it's going to crumble anyway.
But in a same fashion, Caesar would not give up looking for the autodoc pieces, he just have to pull Vulpes and in a week they would have 5 enslaved docs or a stolen autodoc
@@mado-wh4jv the implication when he speaks with the Courier about it is that he's ignoring it and isn't even sure what is causing the problem specifically, and so while it's possible he does that and he is saved, what we get from Caesar seems to support that he might have tried to appear competent into it was too late.
@@thoughtfuldoomguy He mentioned that he has sent scout parties to vaults but they did not return, so he IS doing something, bit just like with Graham assassins, he doesn't make it public.
@@mado-wh4jv oh no definitely, like he has the auto-doc for a reason, and it’s certainly open for interpretation, I just got the sense from the symptoms he was trying to mask that perhaps he wasn’t putting enough emphasis on the potential neurological damage that was taking place. Not to mention with the Hoover Dam battle looming, much more of his resources and attention are likely in that. But yeah it’s really just how I saw the dialogue, certainly open to interpretation/speculation.
Legion bois are just built different.
The NCR requires star wars levels of plot armor.
Ave!
@@theneocypher
Funny for someone in automatic rifle range. (Still wish the Legion had more lore for them)
😂
How does the NCR have plot armor,when the legion largely uses machetes? Just look at historical precedent like the zulus. Before you say the legion has guns, the Zulus also had guns too.
@@harrycallahan5018 Because they're the designated good guys with all the content. Siding with the legion is like pushing against the whole game.
Brain tumor, political instability.
Ave True to Caesar ⚔🐂
Ave!
Ave
I always felt like the east coast fallout lore was wasted on Bethesda. There were so many potentially cool factions that Bethesda could have created outside of the minutemen and generic raider groups. I felt like the minutemen were a bit primitive given the amount of time that had passed since the bombs fell. By this time the West Coast already has a structured government with its own currency, laws and relative law and order within its own borders. Yet in comparison the east coast still consisted of many fractured and nameless generic raider tribes and one faction who mainly consist of ragtag militias.
by my understanding the minutemen kind of made sense with the “lore” of the previous commonwealth government. but it rlly is not communicated well, its like the most disappointing kind of writing where it’s sooooo close to be going good
Bethesda fell for the trap Sawyer was veering into: Sawyer HATED the post-post apocalyptic vibe F2 and NV were veering into, hence Mr Bear Bull Bear Bull deciding to nuke both NCR and Legion. Sadly, Bethesda wasted the East Coast by doing just that, not allowing any actual factions and governments to form and still relying on bottle caps for currency instead of, ya know, actual money like NCR dollars or Legion coins.
Isn't that because the Institute killed off any attempts to form a proper government?
@@ju6599 Yeah, it's even said in Fallout 3, the Commonwealth is under a "strict" underlying command by the Institute, after the first "group" took over, they've tried reaching out to them and it ended not well as just like the Railroad, they had ideals they wanted to force on them, so the Institute took them all down, and burned all the others wannabe militia to keep control of the situation.
But as you see during F4, time has done them dirty, and they're losing a lot of people.
The ncr is completly reliant on the courier, both moraly, And miltarily.
The NCR has been reliant on the player character for 2 games not including new Vegas
And the Legion isn't?
@@Thagomizer without courier intervention the Legion wins the second battle for Hoover dam they don't need you lol
@@Thagomizer The Legion has Lanius, just like the Enclave had Horrigan, they're both Characters that does not need in anyway a Main Character to succeed whatever they are planning.
Those two characters are playing MAJOR roles in changing the Wasteland, because they are VERY similar to Main Characters, only difference is that they don't make choices and use stimpacks.
@@bonerbreath6747
Yeah, if it wasn't for the Vault dweller, Shady Sands would've been wiped out by the Great Khans in the first game! XD
This isn't a very compelling video if you know your history.
Yes, the Legion can make a lot of ground against the NCR's floundering and over extended army that doesn't even know why they are there. Yet the moment they start to take heavy losses against an organized army the patriotism will kick in. You see the early embers of it in New Vegas.
If the Legion were able to take the Mojave this would galvanize the NCR and set the whole nation on a war footing. Can you imagine if somebody had taken out an early US president? The Legion hasn't seen the NCR war machine yet. They've not seen their artillery, their air superiority, or the endless waves of screaming patriots which drowned the Brotherhood.
They've seen the tired, overworked, rangers and those token forces sent to support them.
The NCR doesn't have tons of air superiority... most of their air assets are limited vertibirds as far as we know. Though it's true the main NCR logistics are trucks that have no easy pass into the Mojave. Theoretically they ought to have many battle ready tanks as well. The Brotherhood had working tanks in their arsenal depicted in the games. stands to reason the NCR would as well.
@@genericscout5408
If they had hang-gliders and the other side didn't; that gives them air superiority. The Legion has no motorized anything. The NCR has tanks, trucks, vertibirds, and power armor.
The moment they take the fight seriously they win.
@@grimjoker5572 You should work in lore instead of making a bunch of assumptions. The NCR is already heavily demoralized and the mojave front is incredibly unpopular. This isn't going to be Pearl Harbor, it's going to be the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Furthermore, their power armor has no servos and is just a suit of armor. Their airforce and tanks are way too little to be an effective fighting force especially when a missile launcher can take them out.
@@wowmazin4399
I am working in lore.
The NCR *in the Mojave* is demoralized because the Mojave front is unpopular since, as I said, to the NCR citizen the Legion is just some foreign threat that is far away. This is what happens when Republics wage foreign wars.
The Mojave is the NCR's WW2; in the US the European front was unpopular until one of our own vessels was attacked, thus showing the enemy to be a threat to us. Then we went full gung-ho into war. Same would happen to the NCR.
_"Their airforce and tanks are way too little to be an effective fighting force"_
Even biplanes throwing flechette is enough to turn the tide of battle when it gives you air superiority over an enemy without even gliders. As WW1 proved.
_"especially when a missile launcher can take them out."_
Right; and the Legion uses football equipment with maybe a shotgun or some other small arms. They have no artillery. They have no air superiority. They have no missile launchers.
@@grimjoker5572 The NCR are demoralized because they are fighting a losing war. They are incredibly overextended such that they take casualties from legion raiding parties and fiends. Look at Camp Forlorn Hope. Their supply and logistics are horrible look at camp McCarran. Their hero who led the NCR to victory in the first battle of Hoover dam is demoralized. You aren't working in lore.
The WW2 comparison doesn't work because the NCR is already at war with the legion. The NCR is also invading the mojave unlike the US.
Again you are speculating. The NCR has some vertibirds which is more for troop transport. Also ww1 biplanes were able to be produced in significant quantities, the NCR doesn't have them. Stop assuming and work with the lore. Furthermore, the legion could just get missile launchers back east (where do you think they got the artillery) or just loot it from new vegas. Again, the NCR isn't shown to be using artillery while the legion does.
But there is one important addition: While the legion as the generic bad guy in FNV is set up to win the battle for Hoover Dam without the help of an altruistic good player (Because that's how storytelling goes.) they still can't win the war against the NCR. The legion has virtually all of its army stationed at the dam but still struggels to defeat not the NCR army but a token garrison carefully sabotaged by House. It's kind of like when you join Ulfric in Skyrim, you don't actually beat the legion, you beat Tullius and his peasant militia whose job it is to stop the rebellion before the ACTUAL army has to intervene. Hearts of Iron 4 mod Old World Blues represents this quiet well.
The NCR isn't sending its troops into the Mojave. It really can't do that as there is only one passage to California. If the Legion defeats the NCR forces at the Dam and Camp Golf the NCR has no ways to retaliate and the Legion can use the fortifications made by the NCR to defend themselves. Especially when the NCR has left so much equipment and Gun Runners leave an entire production factory. So even if NCR made a suicidal charge through the passage it would result in defeat for NCR.
The dam is also a perfect chokeppoint for the NCR to hold with open siightlines and only one mode of entry, in an open field battle nothing short of the rangers can match the tactical genius of caesar.
@@jerm70 nah the hills along the mojave outpost would just become the new barrier along with the northern passage above jacobstown wym the Ncr would literally erase the legion if they even cared about the damn they want the strip
The Legion does not have its full strength at the Dam.
Remember that Caesar controls (at least) the lands west of Texas and East of the Mojave. He has hundreds of thousands, if not millions of square miles of land to hold. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that Caesar could raise dozens of 'Legions', but he chooses to travel in a single war host as its leader.
That settled it, time for another playthrough of New Vegas
💪🏻
@@theneocypher same. except divide upon the legion.
I got a little Caesars ad on this video
Pizza pizza 🍕
i like caesar and even though people say the legion is bad because they will fall apart if caesar dies, it's not really an argument because that is the case for 3 out of the 4 factions so he is still awesome in my books
People forget that the Legion is more than Caesar
Caesar built his empire ON his name, it's litteraly called caesar's legion. So yes his generals including vulpes and Lanius (and other generals not in the game) will tear the legion apart. No other faction has this problem, mister house is immortal at this point, the NCR is a democracy so they arnt going to go into a civil war because their leader died, and i assume the last faction is the brotherhood, who will also just elect a new elder. all of this is possible because they didn't build their factions on one, very mortal, person
@lilqwertyy8461 the Legion was built on a idea. & ideas are bulletproof
@@lilqwertyy8461in the game they literally state there is a hierarchy ready to take charge if Caesar dies.
@@warlordsamthat's not the point. Yeah theres a sucessor. But that does not mean that the legion Will follow this sucessor as how they did with caesar. If the sucessor is Lanius, the legión Will fall quickly. As he Is a bloodthirsty monster that only wants war. Every single legionaire yells "true to caesar!" The legión Is built arround HIM
Idk, but in my experience, in Vegas... "The House Always Wins". ♠️
That’s how I lost all of my caps.. 🥹
My headcanon ending for New Vegas is definitely House victory. The courier is a professional that gets the job done no matter what (which we learn because of Ulysses), so I believe the courier would deliver the platinum chip to House
@@KaptifLaDistillerie If the courier had not appeared in the Mojave, it would have been Ulisses who would have done the job of delivering the platinum chip and House would not have taken long to convince him to take his side.
@@KaptifLaDistillerieDelivering it is one thing but siding with house is another.
@@Banana-Boi indeed. But my head canon is that the courrier gets the chip to House and then goes on to live his life doing side quests. The courrier was a blank slate for the player up until the Lonesome Road DLC which gave some sort of a background to the courrier, and solely based on this DLC i'm sure that's what would happen.
However it doesn't solve the NCR/Legion situation. House can easily defend Vegas against both with his upgraded securitrons, but the Legion would surely roll over the NCR if nothing is done. To keep the status quo, the courrier would have to launch a nuke on both faction at the end of the Lonesome Road DLC to deny them access to the mojave.
There is a great take on this in the Old World Blues mod for Hearts Of Iron 4.
We might get some info in the upcoming Fallout TV show, at least I hope. They said the show is set 219 years after the bombs fell, so 2296, andi t's in Los Angeles, and we know that the NCR is still around. So we might get some closure on what actually happened in NV, I just hope they make the right choices, but I'm not overly optimistic...
Should be noted that without courier intervention Caesar will die from a brain tumor that is already affecting his ability to command the legion, a legion that follows him but not his ideals not to mention the depletion of all it's holdings east of the Colorado. So yes Caesar's Legion will almost assuredly take Hoover Dam and Vegas but will be a pyrrhic victory in the long term.
Wouldn't Ulysses nuke the NCR in that case?
@@fullmetalpleb Ulysses intends to use the nukes to irradiate the stretch of the I-15 that connects the California to the Mojave, effectively trapping the NCR there without hope of reinforcements or escape. The knock on effect being the Legion cannot invade the NCR via the I-15 which is the most direct rout, slowing them down long enough for Caesar to drop dead or some cascade of events to fracture the Legion.
@@CommissarTommy22 I feel like that would give the legion enough time to become a prosperous nation.
@@fullmetalpleb Give them time to deplete the Mojave of all it's worth perhaps. Caesar's Legion is the most successful raider faction in the Wasteland but that's just what they are, they know only how to take not build or grow and so they always need enemies to conquer. Trapped behind the irradiated I-15 The legion will be stalled once again only this time without an opponent to fight and without that the Legion will crumble.
@CommissarTommy22 That's the white legs. The Legion has a strong slave economy and would have plenty of farm land after conquering the Mojave. Not to mention all of Utah and Zion canyon as they easily crush the white legs as is shown in the ending slide when you kill Joshua Graham.
Buddy fell for Caesarian propaganda
What mod are you using for the legion armor? Its looks great
We are Legion by Dragbody!
This is legit legion propaganda and im all for it
Ceasar has a brain tumor and will die months after the games ending.
They will collapse, willing or not.
We can take what is said by the Courier during the (verbal) fight against Lanius and rework it a little for the case where the Courier would have died at Goodsprings. The Legion will win at Hoover Dam but holding the Mojave will prove (almost) impossible because:
1- Caesar will soon die and he's currently the only one that knows how to build and run a nation/kingdom
2- New Vegas might be in chaos during the battle because of the Omertas but I don't think Mr House will lose control of it
Not with my Meltdown perk, they don't.
They'll make sure they spread themselves out more when fighting you with fire arms. 😉
Also to add to all of that supposing that Benny killed the courier it likely that the NCR will be on the brink of collapse due to Ulysses launching a nuke against them.
dlc isnt canon without the courier otherwise all of America would have been killed by bigMT
@@redlight3932 why isn't it? I don't have any source to confirm this.
However, as far as the big MT is concerned Morbius is keeping the others at bay. The only problems would be the tunnelers and the nukes.
Ulysses only launches nukes because he's pissed at the Courier. No Courier = no nukes
@@B463L Wrong. Ulysses already learned the lesson(albeit, the wrong one) due to the Divide's destruction. The lesson being individuals can create and break nations. He doesnt launch the nukes because hes pissed but to showcase what he learned from the courier at the Divide. That Ulysses, alone, can kill the NCR as a nation with the Divide's nukes.
The courier being called out to the Divide was due to him learning that the Mojave didnt kill the courier like he predicted and wanted to kill two birds with one stone. Get the courier to come with ED-E to activate the nukes AND to kill the courier either through the Divide's dangers or himself.
Remake this with the knowledge that the NCR is gone
The legion will win because Hanlon is in a nursing home and because for the barons back east winning would be expensive while losing would be free
If only Hanlon was running operations instead of Oliver..
I disagree.
You've misrepresented the Legion. It's effectively a cult of worship around a single man who is worshipped in the likeness of Kim Jong Un. The Legion forces are mainly composed of moronic illiterate tribals who serve as slave soldiers, who also have a mild phobia of advanced technology and speak 80+ different languages. The Legion also unironically has little to no education system and are desperate to enslave useful people. Once Ceasar dies (canonically would happen before the second battle of Hoover Dam without Courier), the Legion's self-destruction would begin. The entire empire will explode into civil war with multiple new Ceasars attempting to seize control (Lanius vs Lucius vs Vulpes, etc) of the beheaded Legion. They would indeed take the Dam without the Courier and the NCR would lose the Mojave campaign; but the NCR would survive without the Mojave. The core NCR territories are heavily entrenched with real soldiers and it'd be a slaughter for the Legion if they pushed further West. Football equipment doesn't protect against 5.56, my friend. Not even factoring in House's response to Legion invasion. House definitely would deploy chemical weapons and decimate Legion forces.
The Legion would take the Dam without question. But it would destroy them violently. The Legion *will not survive* without Ceasar; so many intelligent characters concur with that fact. It's historically what happens when a rapidly-built empire suddenly loses it's founding emperor.
Low-T response
@@JoshuaKevinPerry Sure. If you can refute any part of my comment, please do so.
Honestly I think people also severely oversell the Legion soldiers and their victories as well. While it's true the average Legionnaire is stronger than your average NCR trooper there is an undeniable benefit of their troopers all being trained to use guns. There is also something to be said about how much the legion relies on their commanders in the field and without them they start devolving very fast into a headless chicken and while true Lanius does try to change this up having to front load so many veteran soldiers into a unit to fix this also still makes them a prime target regardless and doesn't really solve the issue. On top of this the intake tunnels are a death trap as well and something that is left out and wasn't mentioned was that the NCR does know about this in a legion playthrough and have snipers watching those tunnels which they can't get past, sure they can probably force their way through one tunnel but the pure number of bodies it would take wouldn't really make for a force that could take out the dam or even really overrun many positions. I think it is also disingenuous to say that the NCR soldiers don't train at all and are doing nothing, I think this was cut from the games but back at launch the NCR at forlorn hope would send raiding parties across the gap to Nelson through a mine field most likely layed out by the NCR themselves and would attack at the camp, this shows the NCR is also being somewhat aggressive and even the ranger outposts near Cottonwood Cove mention that they regularly smash raiding parties and many of the Legion attacks that are successes are done almost entirely by subterfuge and the likes. Searchlight and Nipton being good examples of such and also show that in a head on manner the Legion still can't take the NCR on. The first battle of the dam was also much more of a surprise attack as far as I am aware and the NCR probably only lost the dam because of that, there was little issue retaking the dam after the fact and if we look at the list of casualties for that battle we can see that while the NCR had heavy losses being 103 soldiers and 5 rangers the legion army itself was almost totally annihilated along with most of their veterans, this means that any NCR force that is ready for the legion or even expecting an attack is likely to severely damage and maybe even just outright demolish the Legion. Before the first battle the NCR was under supplied from having just done Operation Sunburst and having most of their Garrison at Helios and they still couldn't even take the dam, Oliver in cooperation with the Rangers opened up a channel from the dam to let the Legionnaires through while not giving any ground until the trap was ready. To be frank the Legion stands little actual chance of taking the dam but probably would cause a lot of damage and loss of life for the NCR but the dam probably would hold and the Legion would probably spiral out of control. The Legion is at the end of the day just a very large band of slavers and raider tribals being led by a man with delusional goals that will never truly be attainable with how he structured his society, bringing all the worst baggage of the past with him and relying on an enemy that in order for this scenario to even be plausible had to literally have the ground rise from beneath them to destroy their main supply lines and enable this situation in the first place. Long story short the Legion is the reminder to the NCR that they can't rest on their laurels or they may have issues they can't surpass come at them soon.
@@tomite472123 Agreed. The Legionnaires are more dysfunctional than advertised. Imagine having two Veterans that only speak a certain tribal language on a squad. You'd need a translator on standby just to communicate basic orders to them. They speak 80 different languages with no education system to teach other languages. They can't even read. Meanwhile the NCR army speaks one central language, every soldier has a basic academic education including mathematics and is at least lightly trained. Not to mention the NCR's standard-issue weapon is a semi-automatic rifle, which would allow a single Trooper to defend against ten Legionnaires. Having a gun is a MAJOR ADVANTAGE over a melee fighter if it were real life.
@@namelessstranger1270 The legion does have some firearms we know this and it even has some automatic weapons but the backbone of the Legion is not highly trained on firearms and the firearms they do use can't really be maintained which is probably why they do rely on melee so much. I think if the Legion could use more firearms effectively Caesar would absolutely do so but with an inability to replace parts and probably also an inability to manufacture the ammo they need as well its a liability. The NCR also has a lot of weapons suited for many different engagements and also very likely have practice in using WW1 and interwar infantry tactics in comparison to the Legion on top of having a manufacturing base. The idea of the Legion winning any sort of protracted war is just implausible if not impossible and this is before we even bring up the idea that outside forces wouldn't just side with the NCR over being enslaved by the Legion or ransacked by them, I would be willing to bet House would prefer the NCR beats the Legion over the legion somehow beating them and having control of the dam House wants anyways.
Just because they would win if the Courier wasn't a factor doesn't mean they are the right choice. You would NOT want to live under them, and don't delude yourself into thinking you would be one of the "elite" in the Legion.
Ave. True to Caesar.
Even the Elite in the legion are still slaves. They get no grand parades as the great legionaries in Great Rome once did, the only thing they get are more responsibilities.
What armor mods are you using in this video?
Cool vid btw, nice to find someone who's a fan of the legion (I like all factions).
Thank you! The mod is We Are Legion by Dragbody
@theneocypher Thank you! Sorry for wasting your time, I managed to find it. For anyone wondering about the NCR overhaul, I believe it is dragbody's old NCR Trooper Overhaul, which is still on the nexus (his newer overhaul and other mods such as We Are Legion are on GUNetwork).
Thanks again.
I know no one really cares but I'm making my own mod that edits the records of legionnaire NPCs. Problem is is I can't figure out how to make it script-based (not real scripting but with the use of JIP and JohnnyGuitar, etc). I'm trying to give the upper ranks of the Legion better guns, higher combat confidence levels (never flee) and speed modifiers where there aren't any. It seems to work fine but if I could make it script based it would ensure much more compatibility with other mods that edit the same records such as NPC face overhauls. If anyone has any idea on how to do this, please let me know!
@SillyChobo Sounds Cool! If possible maybe make armors that show legion auxiliaries just like irl
The Legion are the only hope for the Mojave.
Despite having an army equipped with firearms and even laser weapons and power armor, are managing to lose to a bunch of Roman larping weirdos in old football pads armed primarily with melee weapons. That will never stop being funny to me
Edit: If I had known that this comment would have sparked a wildfire of Vietnam and Afghanistan takes I would have been even more belligerent and directly compared it to any number of real Empires getting cockslapped by the Vietnamese and Afghanis.
It strikes a similar irony to our World's largest and most funded army losing to rice farmers and goat herders.
@@Imfphas20 But the American army did not lose the war. By the end of the Vietnam War North Vietnam was on the back foot as they even lost support from China due to Nixon's political manoeuvres. The American state lost the war by being unable to ensure the home front long enough to force the Viet Cong out of South Vietnam. Because that did not happen it was a matter of time before the South fell.
In Afghanistan, the army did actually lose the war because they actually had the mandate to completely eradicate the enemy while in Vietnam the North was not to be directly invaded and subdued.
@@duckling3615 You are saying that the domestic popular consensus created a mandate which led to the loss of the war. This is true but it also implies that the war was otherwise soon to be won.
The way it was waged was unwinnable and horridly incompetent, which guaranteed America's defeat. Between the 'pacified village index', the inability to actually engaged the North on their turf, and ridiculous protocols like helicopters having to ask for permission to return fire, it was unwinnable. Sure you can point to casualty and hardware loss disparities, but it didn't mean much in the end.
@@Imfphas20
Not soon to be won, but it is very likely the us would have won Vietnam had we stayed
@@spiffygonzales5160 We'll have to disagree. I do not see how it could have been won especially with ill-defined and scarcely achievable parameters for victory, namely, the pacified villages index. The quick collapse of the Southern government (much like the Afghanistan government) after the US left is further evidence of this.
I always figured the Legion could take the dam and press on to take Vegas, but always wondered how long it would last once Caesar died and the Legion was stuck with governing the Mojave with all the same problems the NCR had. It'd be interesting to see if a sequel to NV took place in a now-struggling Legion as the NCR looked to redeem itself. Don't think there could ever be as good of a set up or world building as there is in this game ever again though to be frank.
great video, but I just wanted to mention that regarding nipton, in the video, its not given enough analysis as it sounds like the legion just walked in and took it. a lot happened and the "mayor" basically tried to trade with legion, he handed them the town for free. it may sound insignificant but the way everything was setup, anyone couldve taken nipton, if anything going more indepth about nipton shows that the legion doesnt always resort to just raiding parties and they can and do, work in the background aswell
Yeah, I feel like the legions look so strong because their lack of content
"You're too late, skirt boy! my personal army of unicycle robots have MISSILES!"
You make great arguments for why the legion would win this battle, but the war is always going to be won by the NCR.
The slave economy of the legion hard caps how much it can grow and the high level production we know the NCR already has. On top of the fact the NCR has an Air Force, and I believe even a Navy all but insures NCR long term victor.
If the NCR loses the Mojave they have basically no chance of reclaiming it, the Mojave is basically just choke points and the NCR only has one real entry point (Mojave outpost) an air force is great but without the guys on the ground they are worthless for capturing territory. Also the NCR is in a couple of bad spots they don't have the water resources required to maintain their farming operations (too many fields in California a place where in the modern day water is still a bit of an issue). It's not purely one sided
@@fallout0624 eventually the legion runs out of territory to conquer that isn’t NCR, with out proper ways of re-arming and supplying there army falls apart. Slave economies do not compete with industrial ones. War is always about technology and attrition both things the NCR will win at. The legion can take a huge desert if they want but without the ability to properly take advantage of the technology in Vegas they will suffer from the same problem the NCR has, to much territory to little man power, but worst with no dam to make clean water, and no real agriculture. Once Ceaser dies the hope of the legion evolving into anything else dies with him. Converting NCR citizens will also be a lot harder then converting tribals into legionaries. The truth is the game is rigged from the start against the NCR.
@@derekrau8236 the Legion doesn't need to conquer, Caesar wants a proper capital to change the Legion from a nomadic raiding army to a standing army. Remember without Vegas the NCR has 10 years before they run out of natural water resources (even Chief Hanlon talks about how few lakes there are). Technology and numbers do matter in war but if you don't have enough resources or logistics to transport them they are all but useless (a pro to the Legion making their own machetes in-house ). Also big note, Hoover dam produces power lake Meade in game is naturally pure water so no need for the dam to really operate that efficiently farming isn't a problem the Legion already has subjects who still run farms in their territory. Converting NCR civilians would be about the same as converting your average tribal aswell if not easier because of the rampant crime in the NCR Cass even states how much safer Legion caravans are when compared to NCR caravans. Both sides have major pros and major cons, if the Legion wins in New Vegas they get A LOT more then just the city and the territory, the gun runners won't be able to evacuate and take all their schematics and tooling with them leaving the Legion a literal arms factory (small as it is one arms factory would be able to eventually arm their whole army)
@@fallout0624 but without the Courier Ceaser would die. Lanious would take over not Vulpis. What transportation does the legion have, feet. What manufacturing do the legion have, stealing from others. What agricultural does the legion have, non. Actually the legion can’t keep up a war with the NCR. Look to history and you’ll see the best comparison to the Legion is not Rome but Sparta. Sparta had the best warriors around but could field a legitimate army because they were constantly thwarting slave revolts. And just because the NCR has a bad reputation in the Mojave does not mean there the same across California. Tribals will follow strength over anything else. Where as the citizens of the NCR have a society to fight for, education, plenty of things to keep them from wanting to be literal slaves.
@@derekrau8236 we only see that option if the courier is working with the Legion. He is leading the second battle of Hoover dam, Vuples isn't going to sit around with his massive spy network, the courier is only taking a place. The legion doesn't make use of advanced manufacturing but they also have actual blacksmiths in the fort. The Legion is also said to run off of a tide system (10 percent of whatever is produced). Yes the NCR has a bad reputation pretty much everywhere the Hub is literally undermining the NCR's currency with caps. It's not simple black and white the NCR is more dangerous than Legion territory that's what what gets cities on their side (they become subjects not citizens or legionaries from all that's established in game)
Just found your channel, you have a really well-made argument here that I can't find much fault in. However your speech could use a little work. You're pausing at random times, which greatly breaks the listener's flow. As well as emphasizing meaningless words. It gets pretty hard to listen to.
I'll never forget my first reaction to going to Ranger station charlie, chatting with the rangers, leaving and then one day coming back to find them all slaughtered and the place booby trapped
When I first arrived to the ranger station I was ignorant to the greater conflict at hand, after coming back and knowing so much more about how the Legion opperates and how they've got the NCR in a grip of fear it was crazy seeing a place I'd previously visited turned into a graveyard by the Legion
Actually your favorite faction would lose because my favorite faction (they look cool) would win. 😎
The NCR is under supplied and understaffed not only that but have to deal with incompetent leadership, but if all 3 issues are resolved then the NCR could annihilate most issues plaguing them in the mojave
Most definitely! Just look at how successful the Rangers are
They also were up against the Legion and House at the same time. House mentions the NCR could easily win against either of them, but risking an attack on one, leaves them too vulnerable from an attack on another.
@@AcornScorn thats because of the other issues but a properly manned NCR could probably be able to deal with both
@@dominicsouthern7672Yeah but the NCR is badly managed and overexpanded, that's kind of the point of the faction.
It's like saying, oh the legion would annihilate most issues if they had good tech, or house would annihilate most issues if he had gotten the platinum chip in time and had a few loyal trustworthy underlings.
Yeah, the factions all have issues, that's why people still discuss the game, there's no "correct" option
Love your work. Ave Amicus.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Thank you! Ave!!
Marcus from Jacobstown:
"Caesar thinks he can change human nature. Most of the legion is following Caesar, not Caesar's ideals. When he's gone, it'll crumble.
It's true, but that doesn't change the fact that without the courier's intervention he would still have won; whether his empire collapses in the long term is another matter.
@@daemonium3278 without the courier the legion might take the dam (2nd attempt), Caesar has couple of years then dies from the brain tumor along with the legion. The NCR would roll over the remnants and retake the dam/territory.
With an intelligence level at 4 Caesar did not build a legion for longevity merely for conquest. Victim of its own success.
Marcus remembers how the Unity fell after the master died, he knows it will happen to the legion the same way.
@@frazza5503 Big difference is, the Master was actually alone in his fight, Caesar is not.
@@Cynwale So having an army built from people who have had their cultural identity taken from them, but not completely, is a good idea then? creating a society that is built around impressing one man, doesn't have infighting?
Caeser has set up his legion so that it will implode once he dies. From it's tribal members returning to their original homes, to infighting between influential members not being able to decide how best to do the will of caeser with him dead and gone...
The vibe I always got is that the Legion would definitely win against the NCR if there was no courier.
NCR commanders admit that several times. I never understood why people said the legion can’t win even without the courier
Benny would win 🤷♂️
@@whatisahandle_69 Nah, he wouldn't have been able to get to the Securitrons in the Legion camp, and as such would be overwhelmed since he probably has at most 200 securitrons in Vegas proper.
@@AlyssMa7rin Even in their new "upgrades" Securitrons can barely keep up against Legion hit squad, so yeah, they ain't passing Lanius.
Tactically? Yeah they would.. strategically? Yeah noooooooooooo... Don't believe me? Ask the zulus how that went when they went up against the British? Or.. Ask the samuari how that went when they went up against the IJA.