Right. So assume you're one of the people in charge of the commonwealth and you get some sort of a hold over Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont either before fallout 4 or after. What do you do?

Find out what's happening, first of all. And the major population centres closest to Boston will be New York, Montreal and Quebec city. Whatever's standing, two out of those three will predominantly be a different language and culture and probably ally immediately, and the one that's not will probably be considerably more nuked.

So right off the bat, you better hope the French are friendly, let alone what's rumbling in the bronx.

Assuming they're not, you'd probably want to get as much territory and resources as you can. Maybe some of upstate New York, but New York city itself might be contesting that as well as Connecticut and Rhode island. The smart move would be to expand North and much as you can and get what's there.

Sorry... Playing out a weird sort of fallout rts in my head.... Maybe the basis of a new game, lol...

Fallout Total War!!!!!

that is, as far as I know, only speculation from the fact that we see one bomb hit in the trailer, and Todd mentions the bomb site becoming "the glowing sea."

I think you have called it.

I was wondering how they would do the advanced tech of the Institute and still be a war-ravaged quagmire of violence and despair.

Maybe they function like Japan or China with all outside influences kept confined to a small district and only trusted individuals have any contact with outsiders.

On the flip side the Institute would still need trade.

They would have no troubles manufacturing trade goods.

Just Antibiotics would be worth a fortune.

Working radios and other high tech goods would also be very valuable.

With Boston Harbor offering good shelter and easy access they could pull in trade, salvage, food and other resources from all over the East Coast and beyond.

Their neighbors like Diamond City would get the scraps and the the Commonwealth would be a wasteland that was just less radioactive than the Capital Wasteland.

With MIT being there its not to far fetched they made a defense system like Mr. House did. Remember only one bomb hit the Mojave as well(Unless I am wrong about the bombs hitting the mojave). And, like the wiki says, the Greater Boston Area was the one hit with the bomb. it is unsure it he city itself was hit.

Plus, Vault 111 is quite obviously not in the heart of the city, but in the Greater Boston Area. Hence why the bomb goes off near the vault.

I think it was more like 7 hit the Mohave. Certainly one hit black mountain.

NYC would of copped quite a few bombs Im thinking. Financial Capital, Former seat of the UN in this timeline (with the UN being disbanded).

^This. The only reason D.C. would get hit hard is due to the fact that it is the seat of the government. Other than that.....meh. NYC would be a waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more valuable target. Remember that the states was divided into commonwealths before the great war, and the Eastern Commonwealth contains:

NYC - Former seat of UN, Wall St etc

Niagra Region - mad power generating tech

Philly - Massive industrial city

so just these three reasons alone would make sense why NY would take more bombs than Boston IMO

Unless the Institute has a collection of rebuilt destroyers and cruisers to enforce their rule and keep the pirates and sea critters down, things wouldn't be close to that organized.

And unless it was a really big coast guard there is no way you can cover from New Your to Maine and Montreal and Quebec city.

Now naval bombardment is a great way to get rid of pirates and convince City leadership to toe the line or else.

They could protect trade and keep the peace any where along the coast.

But without them everyone is just going to be trying to survive and the raiders and pirates will be a major hazard.

With the raider and pirate nipping at the heels of the smaller communities it is going to be hard to build up a large enough population base to support a large trade network or a large coast guard.

Finally the Institute sounds to preoccupied and isolationist to try to some thing like that.

They won't even try to improve the situation in the 15 mile radius of the Greater Boston area, so why would they worry about the four or five hundred miles of coast line around them?

Well we had the boomers in New Vegas. The found a base full of guns and ammo.

Maybe the institute found a naval base?

Or maybe the British are coming.......

Well, that might be one of the big endings of fallout 4 -- you use the tech of the institute to get some of that stuff produced in a short timeframe so that 10 years later they could give the ncr a run for its money.

Probably still would have less people though.

We need to get back on topic here.

For Fallout:Detroit you wouldn't even have to imagine what the city would look like devastated by atomic weapons.

Lol. Yeah, that's not even a fallout game, it's just "Detroit".

Nilan: Cept in the FO timeline Im guessing American Nationalism /pride never cause Detroit to fall over and the 3,000,000 dollar Corvegas were probably all pumping off the production lines still.

I saw this about the size of Fallout 4, idk if it is true..

http://www.inquisitr.com/2231073/fallout-4-will-learn-from-the-mistakes-of-skyrim-bethesda-discusses-map-size-and-loads/

I was under the impression that The Commonwealth is a somewhat loosely aligned group of factions. I wouldn't be surprised if the Minutemen, Scollay Square, Institute, and Diamond City are part of what would be considered The Commonwealth. I also get the impression that in some quarters, specifically the Institute there is little religious respect. I'd expect Diamond City to be the primary merchants of the area, with the major competition coming from the 'Pirates' and maybe the grounded boat we saw in the teaser trailer. The Institute provides some tech to the area and maybe additional security in the form of the Synths, Scollay Square being the standard den of villainy (oddly, where I think Marcella may've *it's a word* originally bartered passage to Point Lookout), and lastly the Minutemen are the standard troops of the area. But that's just my guess, which makes me believe that most of Boston (and it's immediate suburbs) is untamed, but still loosely aligned.

The Institute is isolationist, and doesn't share their tech with outsiders except in special cases.

and nothing so far has suggested The Commonwealth factions/cites are aligned in an yway