Was curious as to who's side you all normally choose and why? Goodsprings or Powder gangers? NCR or Legion? Do you gain the Boomers, Remnants, BOS as allies or destroy them?
Just wanted to see, kind of like the where do you live post Megaton vs Tenpenny
I never felt like I had a place or belonged anywhere in Fallout 3 after escaping from the vault. Whether this was an intentional design decision to make the wasteland feel so empty, so desolate and at times completely bereft of any meaning or consequence I don't know. Megaton I think was imprinted on me the first time I played because it was the first settlement I discovered that had a player home and was also full of generally friendly people. Despite this I feel no allegiance to the people there as they seem to have no allegiances themselves to anyone or any relations with the outside world.
The people who I most sympathize with are the ghouls in underworld, probably because they're downtrodden. Maybe I pity them, which if they knew this would probably make them resent and hate me.
In New Vegas I ally myself with the NCR pretty strongly but I also bend their rules to help the 'little people' in Westside and Freeside when I can. No system is perfect and patriots and zealots are dangerous.
I help the NCR as much as I can but then go Wild Card. I help to assist the soldiers, not the bloated farce of a Government and then use the overwhelming waves of Securitrons to force a quick withdraw. I get all the allies I can from the BoS, to the Remnants and everything in between.
1. I am in favor of Goodsprings and usually kill the Powder Gangers. I had one planned to have my home base there, but now I have it in (3) places and each have a specialty.
2. Since there is more NCR, I use them to help kick out the gangs and the Legion. Eventually, I will kick out the NCR as well. I really hate the Legion, they are only a figment of the True Roman Empire. If the Romans were present in the Fallout universe, they would be a cross between the Legion and the Enclave.
3. I ally with the Boomers, it's always nice to have someone with air power on your side.
4. I love being part of the BoS and I was heavily involved with them in Fallout 1 and 2 but their Mojave presence is lackluster. In addition, it felt like it meant something to be a part of them in Fallout 1 and 2, now it just seems to be another day in the Wasteland.
5. As for the Remnants, I like their vertibirds and that is about it. Every time I run into those guys, they want to kill me in some fashion so I usually return the favor.
I don't think the NCR government is really a bloated farce. That would be the Legion. Or House, who has to conceal his true nature through smoke and mirrors. Power in the NCR at least is decentralized amongst wealthy brahmin ranchers and merchants and who knows, the president and other government officials like in the OSI. But the fact is there's simply too much money to be made along the established trade routes in the NCR for something like Kimball's assassination to seriously threaten instability there. What makes the NCR the most stable, bloated perhaps but definitely not a farce is its economy. Everyone has a stake in it. The Legion is a farce because its outward display of power comes from a rigid, centralized command structure that would topple like a ton of bricks if Caesar were ever to die.
Basically, there isn't another post-war state that has unified a comparable number of people who could now be said to be living in relative peace and security under a rule of law.
You want that.
So how about the Pitt? Will you side with the slave, who will nearly sure to fight each other and unlikely to be able to find a cure (they are likely to kill her in the process), or side with the slavers, who has more chance to find the cure but are bunch of bad ass....
I play always to my character; for instance, on console, my second character was a slightly psychotic ex-NCR Ranger, so I played a hardline NCR playthrough and outright slaughtered anyone who even slightly disagreed with their ideals.
This playthrough, I'm playing a character who I'm writing a Fallout fic for -
Null, a former Enclave child soldier-turned-courier (Vault 101 start be damned!) with some serious anarchist tendencies. Basically, he'll recruit everyone he can, use them, and once they're spent, discard them - all in pursuit of bringing down what he sees as a failed world (he sees the Legion, House and NCR all as representatives of that world).
Thusly, he's a pretty hardline Independent player. The only groups whom he has any sympathy towards are the small communities; they remind him of someone he lost in the distant past, and he views these tiny communities like children - innocent, without sin. Thus, he will fight to protect them, but if they should happen to hamper his goals, he'll cut them down like the rest.
It's a fascinating playthrough, let me tell you :)
I agree with Tricky Vein, the NCR is not a farce. Excluding slavery, it is more like the Roman Empire than the Legion is. I follow the Roman Empire extensively and I can tell you the Legion is only the Roman Empire at its surface, but really they are just a big Raider-thug faction organized by fear. If the Roman Empire was indeed in the Wasteland, they would look like a hybrid of the Enclave (Technology), BoS (Knowledge, ranged engagements), NCR (Government, Size, ranged engagements), and the Legion (Slavery, Size, hand-to-hand).
I side with the slavers in the Pitt. Not because of anything having to do with the cure or Marie, but because Ashur makes a compelling case: they are making new things. Everyone else, the brotherhood included are still fighting over leftovers from before the war. Slavery provides a large, exploitable workforce, something else that few others have.
I agree with Tricky, the slavers, to me, are the right choice.
