However House seems to think that one of the opposing armies is a threat enough against his Securitrons, so it makes me wonder if trhr NCR or Legion could successfully launch a counter attack at New Vegas. It would probably be risky if they use armies close to what they had in the Mojave, but I think it could be possible.

House compensates the NCR, by protecting their flank with his own security force. Do you honestly believe that a protracted military campaign in a theatre of war far away from the homeland is free? That the NCR doesn't have to spend lots of money, manpower, and resources just to hold on to the Mojave? Do you?

That's the point your missing. With House on their eastern flank, who is essentially a superpower in wasteland terms and friendly towards the NCR, the Republic is free to direct their expansion efforts north and south, redirect resources to stamping out the Brotherhood, improve the situation on the home front and more. Money they'd normally spend on holding on to the Mojave and trying to fix it instead goes towards paying the bill, while it's on House's head to keep Hoover Dam active and sending water and electricity to the NCR.


Uh, no, House orchestrates everything so that the warhawks and their agenda would be humiliated. That's why he wants Kimball alive. It's the President and his cabinet that pushed for the Mojave campaign; With him alive when the NCR military is pushed out of the Mojave, he will be blaimed for the collapse of the military effort. Along with him, the warhawk agenda will collapse.


Why is it unfavorable? The NCR gets power and water, NCR citizens and trading companies can still freely travel to and from the Mojave, and their eastern flank is protected by a large, friendly army. What are these mysterious costs you refer to? I doubt Kimball's pride is considered an invaluable asset anyone's going to miss.


People will notice that nothing has changed, except they don't have to bury their loved ones who died serving far away from home for someone's political ambitions. As Hanlon points out, that's over a thousand troopers who will live, instead of dying on the Mojave front.


Doesn't change the fact he wasn't the President until a quarter of a century later.


That's before the upgrade is installed and he has a massive robotic army that can wipe off entire cities without so much as getting a nut loose.

His army could be 500, 5,000, or 10,000. We don't know how big it is, nor do we know how effective in combat they are.

Yes.. But he would need to be able to produce things.. New Vegas seems like it is just a old world city run by anything salvaged from the past.. They would need to revolutionize where they can sustain themselves without the pre-built armies they had.. Entirerly possible too..

Here's the other fact that can't be ignored. Whomever wins did so with the Courier's support. I've yet to hear an argument to how the NCR deals with the protagonist.

We know how effective in combat they are. They are VERY effective in combat more powerful then Sentry Bots. We also know there are hundreds of them. The NCR however doesn't know how many it could be ten thousand for all they know.

Thats the point to raise the necessary capital to start reindustrializing.

As Kain Vukodlak pointed out, House is raising the capital to start reindustrializing. In under ten years he turned a ruined city inhabited by tribes into what's effectively a regional superpower. The biggest problem with any industry after the war is the lack of sufficient power to restart them. With Lucky 38's reactor online, House has a lot of power to spend restarting the industries. The second largest issue are replacement parts: even in a desert, 200 years of neglect don't do wonders to machinery, which is why House also needs the capital to fund importing machines, parts, and specialists. In the meantime, he will continue to profit from Vegas becoming a safe trade hub for the region.

From where exactly?

The Strip. In ten years he has amassed enough capital to spend 800,000 per year on just finding the Platinum chip. With Hoover Dam and the Mojave under his control he effectively has all the assets in his hands to turn Vegas into an economic superpower.

Do you mean without ?the protagonist? Well in that case House and Independent are very unlikely to happen come time of the battle. So it would come down to the NCR's sheer ability to battle. War isn't only numbers and stats the NCR could in all possibility repel the Legion. If they stopped the Legion's dam advances (ha ) then I don't think cleaning up the rest of the area would be too much of a stretch.

Also much of the fighting happens inside the dam and not above, when the courier moves through the building thing a few rangers back you up, and securitrons with House or Indy, so they have some way to get over there, then we see very little resistance on that side. So theoretically the NCR could get to the Legate's camp, if they managed to kill him I don't really know what would happen.

The NCR also has hundreds of thousands of people to draw upon. They had 700,000 people in 2241 when they only controlled southern California, so it's fair to say it has increased a decent amount over the past 40 years. Though a battle between both sides would still be hard to determine without more information.

You do realise between other outlying settlements, regions, and House being capable of saluaging unused parts from the places in Vegas, it's very plausible. And to obtain metals, he could melt down those old cars. Despite House being a genius, he won't likely have need for cars save for military trucks, seeing as the terrain in the US has shifted beyond use in most regions for those old Corvegas and Chryslus cars.

I wish you'd stop being so biased and try and have a more objective outlook on the other factions. I'm capable of presenting a fair point for the NCR and the Legion, so you should be capable of doing so for Mr. House.

I think House winning is probably the best option for the NCR (my favorite), I'm still not a fan though.

It's explicitly stated in the guide that they have still around 700,000 people in 2281. No population boom in the forty years between.

That doesn't even make sense!

I wouldn't take a Strategy guide to heart. They often goof or mistype. Plus, we have no idea how much food NCR has to spare for their people. Their people are also leaving to scavenge just because times are tough in NCR, their dollar basically is half the value of a cap.

@Wombat- I wasn't talking to you. It's easy to not support but provide a fair and logical arguement for the side you dont support.

It does if you consider warfare, lack of proper medical care (infant mortality etc.), and the generally demanding nature of life before everything stabilized around 2281.

Maybe if they kept the same territory they had in 2241. But they have more than doubled in what land they controlled and with that comes people. They seemed that they were able to maintain the 700,000ish number during Fallout 2 also as it suggests they are still growing.

So its like all the new people they got just dropped dead.

The NCR expansion was also met with new challenges, not to mention the war with the Brotherhood and the Legion, citizens leaving, maybe epidemics and more.

Plus, the number stagnating has some nasty implications for the Brotherhood War.

I think the biggest issue with House's regime is this: Ulysses.

I mean that in the sense that Ulysses carries an argument and a philosophy that sure enough, highlights the Achilles' heel of House's regime. Ulysses constantly preaches about finding the meaning behind messages and the meaning behind your own actions, and what it means for people. House? House fails to do this and doesn't care who exactly is working for him or HOW exactly they're working for him as long as money is being put on the table; paper has become more important than people, results more important than the journey to the results. The result is that House employs snobs, mafiosos and backstabbers. Sure, ok, for the moment he has them all behind desks, doing his bidding for the sake of money, but he's failing to ask himself what kind of culture he's breeding. Under House's regime, people like the Followers and the Kings are doomed to "die out" (not neccesarily die, but they won't spread or be as influencial as others) whereas the Omertas and White Gloves will expand and grow. House didn't think to carefully hand-pick the groups he wishes to "cultivate" or "employ," but rather simply took WHOEVER was willing to do the job, and unfortunately some of the groups who stepped forward were quite self-interested while sure enough, those who declined are partly the groups who saw the injustice of House's threat to push them out. Ironically, it's House's demand for employees rather than request that's kind of his downfall.

He's creating a toxic culture in which people only care for money and power, nothing more; it's the story of Nipton all over again. Much like Caesar fails to tell Lanius that the purpose of the Legion isn't to serve Mars, God of War, but rather to unite all of humanity under one purpose and one cause (to serve humanity more than oneself), House fails to tell the Three Families that their purpose is progress for humanity, not a life of luxury for the elite. The families only care about being paid; they don't really care what House is doing or thinking all otherwise. It's simply a slower burn than the Legion, in that regard.

What will happen the day that a third of New Vegas are Omertas, a third are White Gloves and a third are Chairmen? Alright, the Chairmen are normal enough, but then another third of the population has been raised to be cut-throat and ruthless while the last third is materialistic and shallow as hell. We'll have progress technologically, but not morally in the sense that no one within his regime will give a damn for anyone else, all the while becoming more and more ambitious BECAUSE his culture promotes those Omertas daring enough to overthrow their leader and those White Gloves materialistic enough to take more than they actually need. For all the technological advancement, the people enjoying it will not be the kinds of people who would be just thrilled about using it for the benefit of mankind, but rather they keep it to themselves. Yes ok, we may have rocket ships, but only the rich elite will see fit to use them; not to share them.

In that sense, I don't neccesarily think his regime would collapse (when he dies? Absolutely, but until then it'd be ok), but I do think it would begin to become counter-productive to it's own purpose. It's progress objectively but it's subjectively falling back with each new generation. If you wanna live amongst a world and a culture where people care only about their own survival via money and aren't afraid to screw each other over, then by all means, but if you think that sounds like a problem, and so do I, then I'd say you can expect such problems from House's regime within a couple generations.


In short, House isn't asking the "why" of it all. He is, but the answer is a childish "they reminded me of Pre-war gangsters and I like nostalgia" or a simple-minded "they were willing to do the job."

You're misrepresenting House's regime, quite heavily, by confusing the Strip and its casinos with the entire Free Economic Zone of New Vegas House funds. The Three Families and their influence are limited to the Strip and they are directly answering to House as his employees. They aren't political leaders, great thinkers, tycoons of industry, but employees with a very specific, limited scope: running House's casinos. The only person who rules is House. He is calling all the shots, making all the decisions, and implementing them through hand-picked agents, such as the Courier.

As such, there is very little to substantiate the claim that the Free Economic Zone would degrade morally (lol, by the way, as if humans weren't self-interested pricks by default). House does foster competition, but doesn't backstabbing or scheming that would adversely affect New Vegas. That's why he uses the Courier to run Mortimer's plans and replace the Omerta leadership, because they would severely damage his efforts.

I'm puzzled where you draw your conclusions from. There's no basis whatsoever to assume that the Three Families will ever be anything more than just cogs in House's machine, or that House would allow them into positions of power where they would be able to affect the development of the region. He keeps them contained to casinos, as per their job description, and handles affairs personally. The fact that he hired these particular three tribes is a function of the lack of options, rather than error of omission. You work with what you have, not what you wish you had.

It's also useful to note that the Families are still first generation converts, still retaining their tribal affinity. Exposure to modern civilization will slowly erode that and ensure they'll be more productive and less savage with time.

In short, you're working off of mistaken assumptions and misrepresenting House's stance. It's a function of not understanding the power structure of the Strip, where House always wins.

Thank you for saving me time on what I'd need to post.

To tack on to this. The Three Families aren't House's key to victory, well, not in the grand scheme. The Three Families are a result of his 'work for me, and good things will come your way' attitude. Ultimately, they exist because he needed A. Muscle, and they were smart enough to see the winds of change, and B. House ultimately has no interest in micromanaging the casinos. So long as they rake in the profits to ensure Houses other future endeavors are financable, he lets them do as they will with their running style, so long as it is within his parameters.

Look to Europe. Look to Asia. Most, if not all nation states in the old world started with one strongmand, one (benevolent) dictator or sovereign. Some nations/independent/quasi independent city states still retain a powerstructure that closely resembles that of Houses Vegas. Macao. Andorra. Monaco.

And House has huge advantages. Near techo-immortality lichdom, IE he doesnt have to worry about his empire being split up in hereditary fewds for the time being. Access to alot if not all of the knowledge of the old world (he IS the former CEO of the worlds largest computer enterprise and he would have schematics and blueprints up the kazoo), caps comming in with next to no effort, access to plentyfull power, armed forces / security that never sleeps, never needs rest, a readily available workforce he can educate and shape into whatever image he chooses, and a plethora of other advantages.

infact he can even expand his city state structure into a Hanseatic league city state structure if he so pleases. There is a certain genious to the simplicty of his city strate structure. It really doesnt demand much to set up a "house franchise" anywhere.

They're not tribal to begin with, in my opinion. They're all playing their assigned roles quite well already. And no, I'm not misinterpreting House's stance, I'm saying that House is NOT portraying his stance to the people. The Courier hears "we need to make this happen for the good of mankind." Everyone else? LITERALLY everyone else? They hear "do what I say and get money." The result is it produces a culture of shallow, selfish people who see money as the only important factor, with no other goals in mind. And I'm not saying it'd fail immediately; I said clearly in my post that House is what's holding it all together. I'm saying that with House's death, the Strip will turn to [censored]. House isn't immortal, he's simply extended his lifeline to be far longer than usual, but his own dialog implies that yes, he'll still die. One can of course say "well the Courier will understand his goals and carry on his goals," my argument is that I consider the Courier an X-factor, in that case. We don't know that for certain; hell, I consider that to be by design, so players can happily state "My Courier understands House/Legion fully and will flawlessly carry on their wishes once they're gone." Easier said than done, and we can't know that for certain.

Long story short, Caesar indoctrinates his entire Legion. The reason he does so is because he's trying to purge humanity of greed, selfishness and other such base desires. While I'm sure many of us can agree it's a frivilous war given that such things will likely always exist, Caesar makes a valiant effort in doing so, as the Legion is often so alien to the other cultures of the Mojave that they see the sacking of Nipton as a glorious and righteous triumph (because it's residents are "self-interested [censored]s" who don't care for their fellow man) whereas others consider it a slaughter. House, for better or worse, doesn't attempt to do this. I'm not saying he SHOULD be attempting indoctrination, I'm simply saying that the ONLY clear message he's sending to the people of New Vegas is "comply with me, get money; don't comply and pay the consequences." The issue is that House, while he does keep it in check while in charge, is going full-speed ahead towards a culture of greed and self-interest the moment he's gone.


I'm drawing my conclusions from survival of the fittest, and the game endings. House clearly has an intent to expand based on game endings, ONLY avoiding Freeside if the Kings fight the NCR. Even if he does avoid Freeside, the point is an intent to expand exists.
Are you telling me that the Three Families, comfortable in their casinos, provided with everything they need, are less likely to "expand" than the Kings or the Followers, who have to deal with the troubles of Freeside?

I'm saying it's as simple as this: you know what means power in today's world? Money. You know what happens as a result? I bet a very, VERY large percent of us were raised with our parents saying "get a good job that makes lots and lots of money." House is supporting three families in particular, and as such, he's supporting their actions and their attitudes. With that, citizens of New Vegas are likely to pick up on that and adapt. Let's say, hypothetically, House were to decide he's going to expand further and take Westside, Freeside and Eastside (Fiend Territory, basically), telling all it's citizens that they either need to play along with some new plan of his or get out. You think as many people would deny his offer as before? No, some of them would accept the offer having CLEARLY seen how well off the three families are compared to those who initially turned down the offer last time.

House simply shows no interest in such matters. You mentioned the Omertas and Mortimer? You were half right. Yes he keeps the Omertas in check because that threatens his entire "business." Mortimer? No no, the Courier has to stumble across that little problem and handle it himself; House doesn't care because he considers it small-time. He knows full well what the White Gloves are capable of, but he never sends you to deal with them.
With House at the wheel, yes, we can very well expect him to simply drive his "employees" to do whatever he likes, and his "hand of God" interference with things like the Omertas may send the right message. Once he's gone however, I can only see the remnants of his nation having built-up a toxic culture, based on what we know so far, simply because the ideals and the cultures he's supported thusfar have been very self-interested while those he's oppressed have been the opposite.


I'm simply asking myself "what happens to House's regime once House is gone," and to be quite frank, I don't see it any better than the answer to "what happens to Caesar's regime once Caesar is gone." As I stated, House has his goal of progress for humanity, but do his employees share that goal? Were they given a memo informing them that was the goal? Who takes over once House is gone? Only the Courier knows what House's vision looks like, and we can't say whether or not the Courier would do so properly or not. The only difference is that while Caesar has, at best, 30 years, House may have another 100 or so, thus it'll be a while before such issues manifest themselves. The issue is however that by that time, they'll likely be irreversible in that they've become a standard for the culture, and then all the greed of his followers can easily undo all the progress he may have made.

So, basically, you're wild guessing, especially when you claim that House is creating a particular culture. He isn't. You're working off the mistaken assumption that the inhabitants of the Mojave are gullible sheep that will mindlessly follow anyone who ends up on top. They aren't. House creates the ultimate freedom, where everyone is able to do what he wants, how he wants, as long as he doesn't threaten the Free Economic Zone (which is a pretty broad definition, murder involved).

People ARE shallow and selfish. Don't know why you think they are not. As such, I don't see how House's reign would give rise to something more toxic than the NCR, Legion, or Indep.

Last, House is effectively immortal. He isn't going to die anytime soon, and certainly not in 100 years.

Even if he did succeed in FONV, House is still the filling in a turd sandwich. The NCR or Caesar's Legion will not simply pack up and leave.

Which is why he has a massive robotic army that can wipe the armies out. In fact, it already does that to the Legion by the time you reach Lanius.