Fallout: New Vegas is definitely one of the best RPGs out there when it comes to letting the player do whatever they want. There are loads of quests to do and places to go, as well as a whole host of unique character builds to experiment with across multiple playthroughs. The game features a number of joinable factions, however, and leaves it up to the player to decide which one is right for them. Of the main ones, here's the returning NCR faction from the old Fallout games, the enigmatic Mr. House in Vegas, and of course the newly introduced Caesar's Legion.
For most players, finding a reason to join the first two factions is somewhat easy, it's justifying a Legion playthrough that tends to be the hardest as they are intentionally portrayed as a brutal and regressive tribe of slavers controlled by a single figurehead. There are, however, several reasons for joining them that the player can concoct if they wish. These range from playing as a character whose ideology matches that of the Legion, preferring their currency over NCR dollars, and more. Here are some of the best reasons players can come up with for joining Caesar's Legion in Fallout: New Vegas.
7 Fed Up With NCR Bureaucracy
Everyone knows that the NCR is a bloated and overly Bureaucratic nation with corruption issues. Caesar himself points out how the NCR is overextended, and that its people are lacking in representation. The Legion, on the other hand, does not lie to its citizens that they have no say in political matters.
This fact, however, is spun as a positive of the system, as that means there is no dead weight brought on by needless bureaucracy. A player can rationalize this as giving the Legion greater ability to get important things done and adapt to changes quickly, at least in theory.
6 Hatred Of Advanced Technology
For many in the post nuclear wasteland, the downfall of humanity was caused by its insatiable need for better and better technology. This technological arms race is what led to things like the Atom Bomb, FEV, and the reduction of the planet's resources to the point of global armed conflict.
Caesar's Legion is fundamentally against the development and use of advanced technology. Instead, they prefer to live more primitive lives not unlike those who lived during the time of the Roman Empire. Any player that's weary of the danger advanced technology holds should take a serious look at the Legion.
5 A Safe And Secure Post-Nuclear Wasteland
One of the things even pro-NCR caravan drives often say when asked is that Legion-controlled territory is definitely safer than the Mojave is, which is mostly occupied by the NCR. This can be attributed to the Legion's rather harsh (if not outright brutal and Draconian) punishments for even minor crimes.
Given the sheer scale of its territory east of the Hoover Dam, this is no small feat either. If the Courier is willing to sacrifice freedom for security in the post-nuclear wastes of former America, then the Legion is definitely the faction for them.
4 Legion Money Spends Well
For some of the more mercenary players of Fallout, the Legion is surprisingly friendly to their type. Of the two factions in the game with their own form of currency (the other being the NCR), the Legion's is by far the strongest, with one Denarius being worth 4 caps and one Aureus being worth 100 caps.
To put it bluntly, Legion money spends just as well if not better than any other currency in the Mojave, which means quite a bit in the wasteland. Indeed, there are few things more profitable than walking the wasteland as a "servant" of Caesar.
3 Belief In The Legion's Ideology
There are two parts to the ideology of the Legion. The first part is the public facing regressive and brutal empire that tolerates no weakness of any kind. Citizens of the Legion are measured by their usefulness to the state, and are expected to live their lives according to the will of Caesar. This is what most people in the wasteland see the Legion as.
Privately, however, Caesar himself is aware that the Legion must evolve in order to survive. In absorbing the NCR, Caesar hopes to take on some aspects of its society and merge it with the Legion's, creating a new nation that contains the best attributes of each and none of the weaknesses. It's entirely possible to role-play a character that totally believes in this complicated ideology due to how fleshed out it is from the player's perspective.
2 Covertly Support The NCR?
In many ways its completely up to the player to come up with a reason to join a particular faction. It could be for completely legitimate or utterly stupid reasons based on the type of character they're role-playing. In this case, joining the Legion would be done under the secret pretense of it being ultimately beneficial to the NCR. This idea is based on Chief Hanlon's appraisal of the conflict in the Mojave; The NCR is overextended and fighting a needless battle so far removed from its borders that the people back West don't even care.
Supporting the Legion means driving the NCR out of the region, but it also forces them to deal with the problems they had ignored for some time by bringing the conflict closer to home. It also reverses the dynamic of the conflict in the long run, with the Legion overextending itself into the NCR's core territory - where it is at its strongest. This choice hinges of the notion that the Legion is doomed no matter what happens in the Mojave.
1 The Good Old Fashioned Psychopath Playthrough
Yeah, the Legion makes it really easy to be Psycho. Setting aside the fact that many of the key people in the Legion's leadership structure, including Caesar himself range from somewhat to totally insane, the entire ethos of the Legion revolves around the application of strength to an utterly toxic degree.
There's slavery, crucifixions, murder and wanton destruction of whole towns that don't conform to the Legions beliefs. A psychopath character would find themselves very at home is a society where the weak suffer at the hands of the strong.
Fallout: New Vegas is available now for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.