You do realize that you can hardly intervene at all in the Inde ending, and the NCR still defeats the Legion at Hoover Dam, the only thing really differing from their ending being that they get stabbed in the back afterwards. Fortifying well-paced strategic strongpoints in an otherwise empty and featureless desert is hardly a poor strategic decision, but of course, all you care about is 'tactics.' Never mind that lying in wait inside a doorway is a horrible tactical idea, as doors are natural chokepoints (and kill zones). I would hate to be under your command, because awful decisions like that can get an entire squad wiped out by a handful of shooters. I struggle to think of any evidence suggesting they 'win' in the lower levels of the dam short of Courier intervention in their ending, because, as I believe I had to state earlier, a small degree of tactical surprise does not offset the high state of operational and strategic readiness amongst the garrison at Hoover Dam. They may not have predicted them to come from the intake tunnels per se, but they had patrols on the lower levels to defend themselves against Legion sabotage and infiltration. Which is what happened, and they engage Legion forces coming in the lower levels rather promptly. So much for their brilliant 'tactics', eh? The overall operational readiness of the Hoover Dam garrison meant that despite the Legion's tactical svcker punch, the NCR was able to quickly respond to these Legion attacks.

Unfortunately, If I can recall, the only time we really go on the lower levels is on the NCR and Legion endings, and they win in their own respective endings by default, so there's no definitive answer as to the outcome of the battles in the lower levels, but since the NCR reaches the Legate's camp in the Inde and House endings and Oliver gives pretty much the same speech as in the NCR one about how satisfying it is to see the Legion rout, It dosen't look good for them.

Btw, I had a much different impression during my playthroughs. It just so happens I didn't feel like I had to play the hero in order for the NCR to win, and the NPCs around me more or less cleaned house on the NCR ending, particularly in the turbine area at the very bottom level where all the rangers spawn. The only reason I had to fight at all is because the Legion troops don't spawn until you get close enough on the map. The only thing that I saw as indicating a 'lack of prepardness' was the occasional line of frantic pvssyr over the Emergency Radio broadcast (although one of them turned out to be an 'Aliens' reference), but then again, the opening moments of any major battle is always chaotic, and it seems unreasonable to conclude that they were disorganized.

And in regards to your last paragraph, I would suggest you look up the concept of "Interior LInes". The NCR's main problem in the Mojave is its distance (and that distance complicates their logistics), and the Legion's relative proximity to the theatre of battle (meaning their supply lines are much shorter). If the Legion were to take the Mojave, and that's a big, big *if* right there, as there is little historical precedent for a preindustrial military conducting a successful conventional invasion of an industrial power, their roles would be reversed, as the Legion struggles to maintain its increasingly long, vulnerable supply lines in territory with hostile populations while the NCR continues to enjoy all the advantages a defender has, particularly when said defender has a massive advantage in firepower. A Legion invasion of the NCR would only get harder, not easier, the farther they get.

Frankly, in the short-term, neither side has shown the capability to bring about a decisive and total victory, with the NCR currently facing steep, but transitory problems at home (the BoS war and the resulting economic damage) while the Legion is hardly equipped to invade a much more modern country well in their own turf due to systemic problems rooted deep within their country (their relatively primative state.) If tribal, preindustrial armies, even ones with (some) modern firearms could have conquered the industrial West, they would have, and today North America today would be carved up into several separate nations by the various native american tribes. But that's not how history turned out, did it?

*snip*

Considering that a thousand troops per year die in Hoover Dam (Chief Hanlon), NCR is expending quite a bit from the Mojave campaign and since Hanlon is fabricating reports (which proves to me that NCR is really ineffective if a person needs to do that to get them to listen to him).

As for Caesar sending too many men, there are no raiders in Caesar's territory. He's not sending too many men, he's sending enough in his situation. NCR, they're being screwed over by too many people, raiders, Brotherhood, and others. So which one is really the ineffective ones?

But we don't know how many Legionairres die a year. For all we know the numbers could be near equal. How does that show the NCR is ineffective? They listened to him, then decided to go with thier own idea.

Lanious outright tells you if you talk him down that they're overextended and not enough men in the East. If Ceasar was being screwed over by all those groups and NCR wasn't I think the Legion would look just as ineffective.

The NCR ultimately won at Hoover Dam before you betray them with Yes Man/House because you hamstring the attack by either killing Lanius or forcing him to flee.

You clear the command camp out by yourself (and your followers)

So..... Longknife's point still stands.

Yeah, and guess who was leading the NCR charge? The Courier. Lore-wise, the Dam was a stalemate and would keep being a stalemate until one side does something. Either way, the Courier decides the fate of the Dam and without ANY Courier involvement (not House, Yes Man, or anything. The Courier just chilled in Goodsprings and drank all of their Nuka-Cola), the Legion would've won.

I don't mean numerical value, I mean numerical value compared to the NCR garrison left. Again, Legion's blocking all reinforcements from coming. NCR is already battered from the first few waves of Legionaries that overrun the Dam and even without the Courier's interference, Lanius could've easily called for more Legionaries or killed Oliver himself.

I don't mean that so many die, therefore NCR is ineffective. I mean that so much internal struggles are going on in NCR that weaken it. Hanlon opposes the war. The war itself is called, "Kimball's War" and it seems that the NCR is divided between those who support Kimball (Oliver and Moore) and those who oppose his war (Hsu, Hanlon).

The NCR ultimately won at Hoover Dam before you betray them with Yes Man/House because you hamstring the attack by either killing Lanius or forcing him to flee.

You clear the command camp out by yourself (and your followers)

So..... Longknife's point still stands.

They arrive shortly after you kill him or convince him to reatreat, meaning they already won despite Lanius still being alive for the vast majority of the battle, and unless you're suggesting Lanius's personal guard and the handful of sentries were going to stop the entire NCR Army and change the entire course of the battle, which is utterly idiotic, I don't know what your point is.

Also worth noting...

Pretend the Courier had died that day. No support for the Legion or the NCR.


-The Legion will succeed in bombing the monorail
-The Omertas will betray the Strip
-Forlorn Hope remains at a stand-still as Caesar wills it, his ultimate plan being to have those stationed at Nelson advance on Forlorn Hope when the battle at Hoover Dam starts.
-Searchlight has fallen, unavenged.
-Cottonwood Cove remains intact
-The Great Khans will assist the Legion
-Helios ONE, if still under NCR control, could likely be assaulted by the Brotherhood of Steel
-Bitter Springs will fall prey to Legion slavers

Hell, you could even argue that the Legion is far more likely to manage to forge alliances with the Boomers and the White Gloves (as well as find a cure for Caesar) than the NCR is to settle all of their issues. The Legion presents an attitude of "hey do you mind doing these last few errands to make things easier on us" whereas the NCR presents the attitude of "HOLY CRAP MY CAT'S ON FIRE, HELP."

The thing is....the NCR is convinced the Second Battle of Hoover Dam is the do-all, end-all, the Legion isn't. While Oliver sits there going "DUUUUURRRRRRRRR DEFEND THE DAM," Caesar is literally surrounding the damned thing from all sides.

Without the Courier's intervention, the Securitrons are not at the war. I agree they'd wipe the floor with both armies if they were there, but they're not.
Again, do an NCR playthrough, do nothing. You find shocked NCR troopers trying to fend off an attack they didn't expect as the engineers flee for their lives. The top of the dam fairs better as that's where the snipers have the most advantage, however....
Now go do a Legion playthrough. You can literally not lift a finger the entire way to Oliver's compound and the Legion will win. Everywhere. Their numbers on the top of the dam are overwhelming when you side with them, whereas their tactics (and numbers) continue to help them control the inside of the dam.




I'd imagine it's not exactly hard to casually stroll behind an army of killer robots after they've effectively exterminated everything...

I can clearly see that this thread is going to go sour very quick.

I'm sure something we can all agree on is that the Legion had a pitifully small amount of content.

Of course not, but not all Centurions or Veteran Legionaries are at the Mojave either. But saying that most of the NCR troops are just recruits might be exaggerating it a bit. People like First Recon or even the generic Heavy Troops are all fairly well trained.

Actually most of Caesars army is on the way there cause he wants to take the Mojave and use Vegas as a Rome. Biggot.

Biggot.

Biggot.

Well, since this is clearly going in circles, I'm out. No sense responding to the exact same points over and over again.

How is that being a biggot? Caesar creates a new civilization, at least according to the ending slide.

This word doesn't really apply to what you just said.

What you just said doesn't tie into the definition of the word "bigot".

He's just trying to make his point, and in my eyes, he's definitely made it.

The NCR ultimately won at Hoover Dam before you betray them with Yes Man/House because you hamstring the attack by either killing Lanius or forcing him to flee.

You clear the command camp out by yourself (and your followers)

So..... Longknife's point still stands.

You do realize that if you disable the Dam rather than activate the securitron army, you can pretty much have very little influence on the battle until the betrayal except for killing/convincing Lanius to leave, but he probably would have gotten killed if he'd stayed anyways, so that's a rather moot point.

The Bull.

The Legion's tactics are far more effective than the NCR's (or at least Oliver's), as they actually employ strategies such as manipular tactics and sneaking through the intake towers to surround the NCR troops, who, for the most part, are amassed at the Dam as part of Oliver's brilliant strategy known as "amass the troops at the Dam "

I think we got off track here. I think what the original posting was about was if the entire army of the NCR and the entire army of the Legion was teleported to a magical world and told to fight to the death, who would win. Not just who would win in the Mojave.

Has anyone ever explained how concentrating troops at the Dam is a bad strategy exactly? That's exactly where the Legion launches its main attack. How is it bad strategy to amass as many of your troops as possible at the main objective of the enemy? Oliver's errors are tactical ones like improper deployment of the rangers or failing to secure the intake tunnels. His strategy of massing as many troops as possible at the Dam was completely right.

Has anyone ever explained how concentrating troops at the Dam is a bad strategy exactly? That's exactly where the Legion launches its main attack. How is it bad strategy to amass as many of your troops as possible at the main objective of the enemy? Oliver's errors are tactical ones like improper deployment of the rangers or failing to secure the intake tunnels. His strategy of massing as many troops as possible at the Dam was completely right.

I have a number of problems with Oliver's strategy:

1.) It ends there. That's it, "amass the Troops at the Dam." No flexibility and no plans to react to anything other than a straight forward Legion assault.

2.) Laziness. It is incredibly lazy to assume that the Legion is just going to attack the Dam head on like last time. Oliver doesn't even think about what to do if the enemy, you know, utilizes a different strategy. He just assumes that Caesar is also planning on amassing troops at the Dam and then sending them over, and he is completely caught off guard when the Legionaries begin pouring out of the intake towers and surrounding his men.

The rest are, more or less, tactical problems:

3.) You already mentioned improper deployment of Rangers and failure to secure the intake towers. The latter is just a simple measure of knowing your side of the battlefield and planning to secure every part of it, which Oliver fails to do. The former shows that Oliver is terrible when it comes to tactics, i.e., he is focused more on the political aftermath and his own glory than he is about actually doing his job as a military commander.

4.) Over reliance on technology. Namely, the Heavy Troopers. Oliver fails to realize that, although the Heavy Troopers are tough, they aren't tough enough to survive a Thermic Lance being shoved through their chest. Oliver thinks that his troops will be so technologically superior to the Legion that they won't even need a strategy beyond amassing troops at the Dam and sending them to attack Legionaries.

5.) Not knowing his opponent. The previous point just goes to shows that Oliver really doesn't understand his opponent at all. He underestimates the Legion's use of advanced technology, as we see plenty of Legionaries using Thermic Lances, Super Sledges, Marksmen Carbines, and AM Rifles. The first two devastate Heavy Troopers, the other two are used by Legion counter-snipers. Oliver did not expect this, and he certainly didn't plan for it. Why? Because he didn't bother to gather any intelligence on the Legion, instead he assumed that their army was just some barbarous mass of skirt-clad men who would pour over the Dam armed only with machetes. If he would have known better, I would think that he would expand upon the "amass troops at the Dam" strategy.

How do you know that? We don't know if Oliver has no other plans because there's no need in the game for him to change. His plan is exactly right. The Legion is going to launch its real attack at the Dam and concentrating as many forces as possible there to pummel it was the correct approach.

Evidence he had another plan? I don't recall any.

And the Legion doesn't focus solely on the dam. Turn on the NCR radio. The monorail is bombed, Fiends assault McCarran (Frumentarii are behind this), Camp Golf gets attacked, think Forlorn Hope as well. No, he puts the pressure on the NCR from all sides, knowing full well that every single position they hold is half-assed, and assaulting all at once will strain the NCR and practically guarentee they lose at least one major military position.

You say the NCR probably has intel on this, but no they don't. The NCR has no clue that Caesar is behind the Fiends, they only nervously watch the area bordering Nelson and fail to do anything and they know nothing of a monorail bomb.