In New Vegas you had four basic options as to who you fight for: Mr. House, the NCR, the Legion, and the surprising option of Yes Man. Who at first seems to be the most logical choice, though then the idea of giving complete control of New Vegas to a robot who will dutifully take up the mission of any who ask starts to sound... not so great. I actually thought about this as I was rallying the various factions around "me", but I expected a mission to reprogram him or destroy, especially since my character had all that intelligence... Whatever...

Moving on, there will of course be different factions to put your faith in, but what if I want to make my own? There have been various other fine folk discussing this, but I want to take it a bit deeper. It has been made known you can build your own settlements, and there apparently many plots where you can stake your claim and where you can run your own caravans between them. It is also made clear that their are going to be people helping you guard these settlements and these caravans. It would eventually get old, having to be on the defensive constantly. We need to round up the posse and go smoke these losers!

You do that enough, you'd probably get a reputation for being a leader of men and women alike. That you have the power to keep these settlements safe. So then your settlements grow. And your army will grow with it. The problem with this, is the statement that the settlement feature is optional puts a kink into that theory. But what if we were to say that it is simply and instrument to grow and get different missions? It brings to mind Assassins Creed III where you had a homestead, but the ability to grow it was optional. I hope this is the case, but if not, the faction theory can still stand on its own, but it doesn't make much sense to have this freedom without the ability to apply your settlements to benefit your faction.

This would also tie into the rest of the world. Make the Brotherhood of Steel mad, expect an armored division at your doorstep. Even without a independent faction this would be a clever idea (perhaps not for the Brotherhood depending on the motives of this particular branch). This would also appease those who keep saying that Bethesda is limiting player freedom. I would love to conquer the waste. Or perhaps we do it through peaceful methods? Perhaps you use charm and charisma to convince (or force) raiders to fight for you? Thats a bit of a stretch, admittedly, but would be pretty cool. Imagine as well, standing on the steps of MiT as your loyal soldiers storm its doors firing round upon round at poor synthetic androids. Or it happens in reverse as you control an army that destroys the Brotherhood of Steel and claims Diamond City and all the rest for yourself, seeing as MiT could apparently care less about the outside world (though that is bound to change one day).

Now on to companions. You could make each companion an integral apart for various boost perhaps? A super mutant may make for an excellent bodyguard for yourself. A tech aficionado may give you turret boost for your settlements while he/she is not in your company, and when they are following you, you lose this boost. Or maybe you find a Cassidy-like caravan expert makes your more money while they are at home and once again with you they lose this effect.

There could also be perks that effect your abilities to lead and the attractiveness of your settlements. SPECIAL could also play a part in this. More Charisma = obvious effect. more Perception = the ability to weed out bad apples or an increased ability to see attacks coming, and so and so forth. Some perks could also influence your ability to communicate with outside factions. "Friend of Steel" perk may open up different options for the BoS (or higher intelligence could may them like you more) and "Wasteland Warrior" may perhaps give you more influence over raiders or other unsavory characters (strength could effect this). The possibilities are endless and the ways to approach how you shape your faction and other faction should be just as much so.

i like the idea something like when you built alliances in NV but with whole towns joining you maybe as you said recruiting raiders as foot troops and training towns people to form an army

I highly doubt there will be much of a faction system in 4. If there is one it'll likely be choosing between the good guys and bad guys, though 3 didn't even let you do that so maybe that wont be an option either.

I doubt that this will be in Fallout 4, but I think eventually they should give us an overall goal of basically taking over. It would not be a traditional sequel as one might expect as I figure that that will never be the 'focus' of these games to allow that feeling of eventual total control. We shall see, but I hope settlements extend beyond what they do now, unless the bare basics of it all are very in-dept. We shall see, obviously not much has been shown beyond. I can't wait to see what comes outta Gamescom, Quakecon, etc.

I guess that depends on what I stand for. And why I do what I do.

Bethesda likes their linear storylines, Obsidian were the ones who enjoyed branching paths

I'm hoping that won't be the case.

I mean we know the Brotherhood is there. The Institute is there. The Railroad is there. And the Synths are there.

Not to mention different factions inside the Institute (of which the Railroad could only be one of) and surrounding communities like Diamond City.

If the Brotherhood is anti synth which considering the MWBoS experience with robots would be very believable then there could be all kinds of power plays.

Perhaps the Brotherhood wants to destroy all synths which would put the Institute and the Railroad on the same side.

Do you side with the Brotherhood, the Institute, or the Railroad?

Or can you broker a deal between the Brotherhood and the Railroad against the Institute to free all the synths and limit the production of new synths?

Plus Super Mutants, Slavers, various Raiders, and possible Enclave remnants plus what ever else they spring on us.

It's already confirmed on the game description that we get multiple factions or can do it alone.

The civil war in Skyrim wasn't good vs evil either...

While I feel the Civil War factions were made suitably grey and interesting (enough that people continue to actively debate who is "good", which I take as a sign of doing it right). I really hope any faction implementation is better than that. The same questline in a slightly different order isn't good enough.

Yes. I hope too they increase on it. But it was grey and I hope the factions in FO4 will be grey too. And since this was thge case in Skyrim I think it's very much possible.

That is a good point on the Faction system.

For Bethesda, the last game they did was with Skyrim.

Fallout 4 is using an improved version of the Skyrim engine.

Skyrim had factions so Fallout 4 should have them too.

Here's hoping that the faction system is more like Fallout New Vegas with many factions.

I don't see why not since we are not dealing with a civil war in a long standing empire.

Finally since this is Fallout, I think the factions really will be grey with no clear good guy.

Look at the know players on just the Synths question.

The Institute developed Synths to rebuild the wasteland, no doubt expending an incredible amount of resources to do so, but now has created sentient beings and enslaves them.

The Brotherhood was to preserve technology and keep dangerous technology out of the hands of those that would misuse it.

The Railroad wants to free the Synths, but may not fully comprehend the dangers of totally freeing the synths.

Who does the Lone Survivor chose to support?

They all have worthy goals.

Is there any way to come to a peaceful resolution?

That's actually a good idea about the railroad, but these synthetics are programmed to fight for the Institute, and I believe that programming must be changed or their has to be some form of self-discovery in the machine. Harkness eventually realized he was doing evil but he was special and his goal was to hunt down these runaways so that might have something to do with it.

I'm willing to bet AT BEST we can pick sides between two groups. The railroad will probably be some side-quest related stuff. Either that or it'll be like 3 and we can't pick sides. The Brotherhood is the big bad and we're siding with whomever the good guys are.

Also, skyrim had factions, but other than the civil war factions, you couldn't really choose between one or the other. Even in Dawnguard the quests were virtually the same, and you couldn't fully side with the vampires because the game forced you to stop them from taking over the world.

It's actually promo copy for the game that tells us this. Like what you'd find on the back of the game case/box.

Could you show it to me?

I honestly don't have a source or link to it, but I can concur I've seen it listed a few times- I don't keep that kind of stuff on record, unfortunately. You'll just have to take my word for it on this one, that I can back up Thure's claim.

I believe you. I'm just assuming that by "multiple factions" there's some blurb about different groups in the wasteland, and not a clear confirmation that you can pick sides. If you can pick sides, I'm still willing to bet it's just a binary choice that doesn't change much except for the final quest.