So I was attempting to map FNV's Mojave Wasteland onto a real-world map, and I was really surprised at how small an area it actually covered. For some stupid reason I had thought that FNV's map covered, if not the entire state of Nevada, then a significant chunk of it. But Hoover Dam, Vegas etc. are all actually moshed in that southern corner of Nevada.

A couple of questions:

Why, if the Legion rules over at least some portions of the huge states of Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, hasn't the Legion tried to outflank the NCR in the Mojave altogether instead of funneling all its strength into the tiny bottleneck of the New Vegas vicinity, where the tech advantage and infrastructure of the NCR is most potent? The NCR is in a 'holding pattern', which explains why they haven't tried to do this to the Legion, but why hasn't the Legion done this? Seems to me like outflanking the Hoover Dam (say, assaulting New Vegas from the north) will stretch NCR resources and war exhaustion even further, and lower population concentrations is to the Legion's advantage, given their low-tech nature and their willingness to use psychological terror tactics (ala Nipton).

Of course, I think that question is somewhat dependant of this one: how big exactly are the NCR and the Legion? We've had vague clues so far - we know that the NCR is in Southern California (San Diego, Los Angeles, etc) and Baja, but how much exactly of (modern) California do they occupy? I'm not that familiar with Fallout lore (came to the series with FO3), so if anyone knows if there's a mention of the NCR's northern limits anywhere, do tell. Same goes with the Legion. An actual map would be even better.

There is no real reason why the Legion couldn't do just that, and easily outflank Vegas and the Hoover Dam from north or south. It is arguable that the NCR could repel a cross-river invasion as long as it happened directly north or south of the Dam, say Cottonwood Cove, for example. But there are vast areas farther north and south of there that the NCR could never in a million years cover all of, so yes, it would be extremely easy to outflank them and kick their butts in the wide open spaces of the desert west of the Colorado River, where they don't have the dam bottleneck to make a defense easy.

But, it's a game, and the Dam bottleneck is the easy route to keep the confrontation bubbling at a local and more or less equal level, instead of turning into a quick Legion route of the NCR, if reality and intelligent strategy were given a chance. Any military strategist worth a pile of moldy rat dung knows you hit 'em where they ain't, avoid attacking directly into the strength of a defense, and outflank your opponent whenever possible. Caesar wouldn't be dumb enough to focus all his forces on a direct attack on the NCR at the dam bottleneck, except for it being a necessity for the game story.

Caesar's Legion tried that on the Divide when it got destroyed.

They have also been successful with Cottonwood Cove.

And the NCR controls from Baja to Oregon.

Caesar's Legion controls land all of the way to the Rocky Mountains and Denver, Colorado so they are both really big.

As Sebor13 pointed out the NCR goes from Baja Mexico to Southern Oregon and into Northern Nevada.

The Legion controls all of Arizona and expands into Utah, New Mexico and Colorado.


The best chance the Legion has at invading the NCR is through the Mojave, Southern Califoria bordering Arizona and Mexico/California border.

To attack NCR at any other point means taking over Northern Nevada or up into Idaho, then into Oregon.

Map limitations basiclly, if New Vegas used the old school map node system the original Fallouts used then they could cover more area but as it is now they had to scale it down to have it make sense, ie not being able to walk across the entire state within a few minutes.

I figure if the Legion can crush them where their defense is strongest then the NCR truly and obviously doesn't stand a chance of repelling them after that.