For gameplay reasons honestly. Since the game switches to RTS management mode once you enter the workshop interface. I could just as easily argue that once you shoot up a flare, and a few minutemen come, you can't give orders to them either. Because they've already done their job. They came, voluntarily, (they didn't really have to respond to the flare), and will leave when they feel like it.

I mean, seriously all the people in the settlements who just happen to have a workshop aren't your undying loyal servants.

Absolutely hate all of this forced hero stuff. Much like Bethesda, the Minutemen had me figured all wrong.

I saw some losers under siege in Concord - wanted me, a total stranger, to grab a rifle and just join them in what was clearly a losing battle. Like, out of the goodness of my heart or something.

I've got my own problems the last thing I need is to get saddled with dependants. I've got a dog, who has his uses and who, if it comes to it, I can eat, so I'm all good for company. Sweet rifle tho, so I grabbed that before I moved on.

And why? Cuz the game will barely let me make any of these choices. I'd rather not be forced to continually rescue kidnapped Settlers or defend Settlements. Where is my option to not only refuse to help Preston and Co, but to kill them and take their stuff?

It's funny - I would normally gravitate to the more heroic side of things if the option to be evil was also there - but since the game just assumes I'm a super-awesome whitebread suburbanite, I find myself playing a [censored].

If in order to add a feature to a game the logic behind it has to be incredibly nonsensical, maybe that feature shouldn't be added.

Bethesda didn't have to allow us to command settlers. They could have let us build things and the settlers could have started using those things themselves, without our input. The E3 presentation made it sound like we built our settlements from the ground up. That would have been fine. We didn't really need the ability to build upon settlements that are already established.

Bethesda didn't have to design the Minutemen the way they did either. Maybe instead of making us the General, they could (and should) have left that spot for Preston and made us an honorary member that can ask Minutemen for help when we need it, or just a regular member that helps out when Preston asks us to.

They clearly make it sound like WE, the PLAYER, command the Minutemen when that just isn't the case. So why did they design it that way?

Its basically an in-game settlement editor. There's no "logic" really behind it, nor does there really have to be IMO. Its a tool, not a part of in-game lore. A bit like accessing The GECK within the game.

I mean, yeah I guess Bethesda could have put in a bunch of tedious features like taking time to build structures by-hand and actually having to cut down wood and scrap metal manually, but then it probably just would have been seen as overly-detailed.

Well like I said before, nobody is really. But regardless, my guess is they just wanted to give a "wild-card" ending to the game, and provide an opt-out if you didn't particularly like any of the other factions.

Being General of the minutemen is a faux title basically. It has no real-weight or actual power behind it.

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Exactly- As long as you can not tell Preston " you are fired" you are not in charge

If I lead a faction, I want to have free hands on how to deal with other factions ( do I fight them, if so how, or do I stay neutral to them or do I even try to ally with them ), and what policies I introduce in my faction and not just follow orders.

Hmmm....Minutemen not following your orders? Generals doing most of the grunt work and "General" being more of an honorary title?

Good God.....it's just like being in an eighteenth-century American militia! How DARE they?

http://i.imgur.com/GS19jn5.jpg

Here's the thing. Not that I have actually finished the game for the Minutemen yet. There are some people who like being leader, and some people who like to lead from the shadows. Maybe Preston is one of those people. Just because it's a video game doesn't mean you have to take everything they say at face value. Maybe there is no sign to tell you, but he may be lying to your face manipulating you for his further goals. Matter of fact. If you ask me that's exactly what he's doing. He wants the Minutemen to become a viable force again. He needs you to do it. That way if things go bad, it's usually the leaders who get hanged, not those farther down the totem pole.

Just put a bullet in his head and be done with it. (And that should be a option in game)

Actually Preston is quite irrelevant to be honest.....he may not like something(like me not giving the evacuation alert in the institute) but he is powerless to stop you. I am the one that dictates who has what job and how much the Minutemen expand or not. Preston's job is more or less a desk job....determining who's in trouble and finding places where we could build. The rest is all up to us really. The fact that you can be a lunatic and side with the Institute or the Railroad pretty much proves that the bottom line is that you have the final word. I completely left them out of the loop as me and the Brotherhood took care of business......the mission to go rally the Minutemen for the final assault on the Institute just kind of went "No? Ok then, here's some XP".

If Preston was in charge, he would never tolerate you joining the Institute, and maybe even the BoS.

But as is, he accepts whatever you do. No matter how much he wants to blow up those two, he only suggests it if you become hostile to those factions... as your allies are their allies and your enemies are their enemies.

Yeah I feel like you.

It is a bit of a let down to give you the impression that you're gonna control your own faction and then, well there is no difference gameplaywise.

I guess some things could be modded easily (like going to a resident and asking him if he wants to join the minutemen)

Basically I don't thing Preston is wrong, he plays his role. I am a bit disappointed cause they don't let you play yours.

I actually would've loved a map in the castle telling which faction holds which area and assigning squads of minutemen to certain key points.

It would make you feel like a real general.

Wait....can you rally the Minutemen to join the BoS on the assault on the Institute? Cause that would explain why when Ad Victoriam started I got "Form Ranks" as well.

Yep...I just ignored it and then later as I was kicking down the Institute's door I got the XP for "completing" that mission even though I never went to the Minutemen and they had no part of that battle.

I view Preston as more of an Adviser and Message Relayer. As General, you can't be there to man the radio or receive every call for aid (well, with pip-boy you technically can, but you get the point). He knows the land better than you do at the start, so after I save his pitiful group, I drag him along with me until I get the lay of the land or meet someone better, like Piper. Preston Coordinates the new recruits while I become the Icon that draws in the new guys. I also like to think that once we start having Minutemen running around Boston, the quests I take on are the pressing matters that require direct intervention or or more extreme missions that the Minutemen can take on at the moment.

That's your playstyle.

Preston said I was the leader of the Minutemen. He passed that role to me because he didn't think he was fit enough to hold it himself.
.. yet I cannot tell him to save settlements for me. I can't tell other Minutemen to save settlements for me either. I am the one who has to run all over the map and do everything myself. How is that befitting of a leader?

You're literally leading no one but yourself, all while Preston sits in Sanctuary and waits for you to come back so he can whine about more things you should be doing.

Not entirely true....once you control a settlement you pretty much control the lives of those people entirely....you can tell them what jobs to perform and can entirely reconfigure their properties and so on. If you think about it it's no small thing. Plus as I said above....at the end of the day Preston has no say in any meaningful matter.

The whole Minutemen line is idiotic from the start.

* Hey random guy/girl help us we are attacked by raiders!

* Oh, you killed like 6 of them? Wow! Take the Power Armor and Minigun, cos we can't be bothered with them and we trust you not to kill us. LOL, and if you try to kill us, we are all invincible anyway, even though only Preston is important to the questline. Now kill the remaining Raiders and an effin Deathclaw in the first hour of the game. Nice.

* Let's go to Sactuary! What's that? No, you can't forbid or kick us out of there. We will sleep in your bed. And we will order you to make more beds, cos we can't be bothered again. We will just pretend to bang on stuff and work hard, but accomplish nothing.

* Now you a-hole go and help other settlers, because we told you.

* Back again? Job done? Great! Now you're the General of MM! Still you're gonna report to Preston, because you are his b**ch. Grats moron.

* Continue to slave for us and build a f***ing chair for the junkie Mama Murphy.

* LOLOLOLOLOL! "trollface"

* Profit!

Bethesda treats us like complete idiots.

Never played a Bethesda game before? This game is actually bettter in terms of people acknowledging your rank than Skyrim, where you got snide comments all around although you moved to the top of every possible guild.

It's still bothersome that you're asked if you're with the minutemen by settlers in your own villages, but there are these random road encounters with minutemen patrolls, who recognize you as their leader. That didn't happen before in any Beth game and it's a welcome change.

Preston has all the say in the most meaningful matter of them all - how to deal with the Institute. He tells you exactly how its going to be done and he takes very extreme measures.

Yes, you can choose to ignore him and run off and join one of the other factions if you want to but thats not you taking command as the Minutemen General, its you betraying the Minutemen and siding with another faction despite of them. Preston will react to you accordingly in the end game (ie be displeased and refuse to talk to you). The Minutemen never become hostile towards you, thats true, but thats only because otherwise you'd have to lose the settlement building mechanic from the game which they obviously couldn't do gameplay-wise.

Think about it for a minute. If Preston had announced that he was General and you were hired help, how exactly would the game have been any different? You still would've had the settlement building stuff (Bethesda wouldn't have cut that) and Preston still would've been giving you all the missions to do and ordering you around. The only difference would've been that it would've made a whole lot more sense!

No he doesn't.....as a matter of fact he wasn't even invited when the decision was made.

What are you talking about? If you go down the "side with the Minutemen" route Preston is the one who gives you the quest "The Nuclear Option". You can't get it any other way (unless you side with another faction and they order you to do it but thats got nothing to do with the MM).

See here: http://fallout4.wiki.fextralife.com/The+Nuclear+Option+The+Minutemen

The way you do that is you first go to the faction you want and then you call the Minutemen to help......if you just go to the Minutemen you are practically putting your hand up to say you're clueless and need someone else to decide what's what for you. Makes perfect sense really....either you want to help a faction in which case communicating with them makes perfect sense or you just want someone else to do the thinking for you. Granted it's really bad thinking but there you have it.