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Grand Fromage posted:It reduced in frequency as time went on, too. When Crassus did it it was a huge controversy. By the 600s it was explicitly banned, at least if the Strategikon was reflecting policy and not just Maurice's opinion. Decimation, in a different form, was reintroduced by Cadorna in WW1. Murder by drawing lots, or a punishment for having lovely leadership.
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Nov 14, 2020 22:31
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And people loving despised Luigi for doing it.
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Nov 14, 2020 22:40
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Arcsquad12 posted:And people loving despised Luigi for doing it. It's a me, Decemario!
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Nov 14, 2020 22:43
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I feel like arbitrarily executing your soldiers would make you lose more men through desertion than from the actual executions. Caesar's whole thing of recruiting tribals by defeating them in battle and killing and abusing them until the survivors are all somehow slavishly loyal never made a lot of sense to me. Conquering land and forcing payment of taxes is one thing, but full ideological conversion is a whole lot.
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Nov 14, 2020 23:54
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SlothfulCobra posted:I feel like arbitrarily executing your soldiers would make you lose more men through desertion than from the actual executions. Caesar specifically was able to do it because he was uniquely equipped to live a Dances with Wolves style insane colonialist civilizer fantasy, having organizing knowledge of military tactics (and war crimes) that the completely disorganized, genuinely primitive tribes lacked in the areas he targeted. It's not played up too much but the Legion straight up is convinced he's a god because he's (abusing) (inaccurate, manipulated, hegelian, historicist) centuries of knowledge that they completely lack, the equivalent of a dude with full modern civil and materials engineering dropping into the bronze age...all in service of propaganda and conquest. In a loose sense it's what you can get up to in Honest Hearts, but turned up to 11 and with roman regalia centered on yourself.
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Nov 15, 2020 00:05
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Grand Fromage posted:It reduced in frequency as time went on, too. When Crassus did it it was a huge controversy. By the 600s it was explicitly banned, at least if the Strategikon was reflecting policy and not just Maurice's opinion. It’s true.
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Nov 15, 2020 00:05
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SlothfulCobra posted:I feel like arbitrarily executing your soldiers would make you lose more men through desertion than from the actual executions. Congratulations, you've found the message behind the Legion! They're a mess of a "civilization" that will inevitably collapse without something more solid than a cult of personality to back them, because right now they have less than one generation to survive before they inevitably dissolve.
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Nov 16, 2020 07:59
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I'm gonna try Autumn Leaves on my current playthrough, can you bring companions and is there any reactivity? I doubt it given va but I've been surprised before.
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Nov 16, 2020 09:19
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A Sometimes Food posted:I'm gonna try Autumn Leaves on my current playthrough, can you bring companions and is there any reactivity? I doubt it given va but I've been surprised before. No companions, very self contained. Anecdotal but the only crashes I had with my last playthrough where from when I entered the library and consistently after, I had to load save before I discovered the landmark. So I can't say much further.
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Nov 16, 2020 10:06
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A Sometimes Food posted:I'm gonna try Autumn Leaves on my current playthrough, can you bring companions and is there any reactivity? I doubt it given va but I've been surprised before. There's different conclusions and endings you can get within the mod if you consider that reactivity.
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Nov 16, 2020 15:25
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Proletarian Mango posted:There's different conclusions and endings you can get within the mod if you consider that reactivity. Oh I meant for companions, Burrito already covered that though.
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Nov 16, 2020 15:26
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I saw autumn leaves on that mod guide and decided to try it out. I don't know why they decided but whenever you get close enough to hypatia it auto dismisses your companions, very frustrating when your exploring around novac
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Nov 16, 2020 19:21
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I usually play with no companions at all so not sure why I added all the stuff from that part of the guide.
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Nov 17, 2020 00:04
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So I first played NV in 2015 which waas a few years before I started to tru, in my own small way, to learn more about history and philosophy. I bring it up because I've always wondered about this line from Caesar: Caesar: Rome was a highly militarized autocracy that effectively integrated the foreign cultures it conquered. It dedicated its citizens to something higher than themselves - to the idea of Rome itself. In Rome I found a template for a society equal to the challenges of the post-apocalyptic world - a society that could and would survive. A society that could prevent mankind from fracturing and destroying itself in this new world, by establishing a new Pax Romana. [What does "Pax Romana" mean?] Caesar: It means a }nationalist, imperialist, totalitarian, homogenous culture that obliterates the identity of every group it conquers. Long-term stability at all costs. The individual has no value beyond his utility to the state, whether as an instrument of war, or production. While he does seem to be exaggerating a bit, I came across this in a sort of random place, a paper on the liberal world order: quote:Canonical texts in international relations define peace as the absence of violence (Aron 1973, 21; Bull 2012, 18; Clausewitz 1976, 75; Waltz 1959, 1; 1979, 343). However, a glance at the philology of the word “peace” reveals a more complex relationship with violence. The Latin words for peace (pax, pacis, paco) trace their roots to the verb for a pact (pacisci), “which ended a war and led to submission, friendship, or alliance.” As Rome transitioned from republic to empire, pax changed its meaning from a pact among equals to submission to Rome, and “pacare began to refer to conquest” (Weinstock 1960, 45).1 So maybe he wasn't so off-base.
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Nov 20, 2020 20:08
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Tacitus "quoted" (made up) a speech from a Caledonian chieftain named Calgacus that criticizes Rome's habit of leveling cultures through war and saying yeah this is peace, the Pax Romana is epic.Tacitus posted:To us who dwell on the uttermost confines of the earth and of freedom, this remote sanctuary of Britain's glory has up to this time been a defense. Now, however, the furthest limits of Britain are thrown open, and the unknown always passes for the marvelous. But there are no tribes beyond us, nothing indeed but waves and rocks, and the yet more terrible Romans, from whose oppression escape is vainly sought by obedience and submission. Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a desert and call it peace.
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Nov 20, 2020 20:51
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I'd love to get a clearer sense of how House represents the past and how this representation works in the larger framework the game sets out. House's theming and associations are tied to Vegas and the old world, but also to what seems like futurism, and he stands in stark contrast to the NCR or the Legion in this respect.
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Nov 21, 2020 08:39
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Yes, part of the irony of House is that, despite (or perhaps, because of) being from the old world, he's the only one who doesn't want to return to it. Unlike the NCR or the Legion, he wants to move society on from where it was, Pre-War. Contrast with NCR and the legion who want to restore an old society.
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Nov 22, 2020 03:52
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House resurrected gambling because it was a good business model to take advantage of the existence of an economy. The specific casinos he resurrected were a matter of taste, but justifiable for the same reason that 3-Dog only has prewar records to play on the radio. There's not much of an entertainment industry in the postapocalyptic wasteland to draw upon. How well House's plans for the future will work out is up for debate, but it's definitely less loving insane than Caesar's plan to somehow integrate a big city dedicated to entertainment and vice into his teatotalling nomad warrior empire. And it's not like it really hurts the NCR that much to end its eastern manifest destiny when it has an independent state defended by a robot army to be a buffer against anything else out east.
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Nov 22, 2020 04:54
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House certainly is akin to the NCR and Legion in terms of having the old world blues. I think when he starts fantasizing about space travel and colonizing the stars some players get the idea that he's more forward-thinking than the competition but it's basically him wanting to dust off his toys at the old repconn test site as though the war and subsequent centuries never happened. Meanwhile the concerns of the people living in and around New Vegas don't even register to him. I find it notable that the slide for the House ending doesn't mention any of the stuff from the grand vision he pitches to the courier as becoming reality. Centuries of planning and scheming and the only result is that "the streets were orderly, efficient, cold."
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Nov 22, 2020 04:56
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I mean even he admits it'll take decades to get the initial phases of his space program into action. Probably more since I sent half the functional rockets in the world into an asteroid while loaded with ghouls.
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Nov 22, 2020 05:00
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Even if we assume a time limit on what the ending slides are allowed to cover, you would think it would mention something about New Vegas becoming a home to research or industry. Instead it's just "New Vegas continued to be the sole place in the wasteland where fortunes were won and lost in the blink of an eye."
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Nov 22, 2020 05:20
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Any reading of House as more foreward thinking than the other factions at least needs to reconcile his forcing of the three major tribes of the strip to imitate pre-war culture. His first act upon awakening from a two hundred year sleep is to immediatley recreate the world as it was; that doesn't read to me as the actions of a man sans old world blues.
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Nov 22, 2020 05:22
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It's not particularly difficult in my opinion. When the NCR showed up house was in an incredibly precarious position. He needed to get his own city state set up, make money, and avoid annexation with nearly no time to prepare. Being a businessman first and foremost can we fault him for falling back on an industry that he knew was recession proof and would attract enough tourists to force the NCR to defend the city at their own expense.
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Nov 22, 2020 05:51
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Gaius Marius posted:I mean even he admits it'll take decades to get the initial phases of his space program into action. Probably more since I sent half the functional rockets in the world into an asteroid while loaded with ghouls. Asteroid? Thought they went to the moon.
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Nov 22, 2020 05:54
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MariusLecter posted:Asteroid? Thought they went to the moon. I believe that's only if you correct the trajectory, which I most certainly couldn't do at level 3
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Nov 22, 2020 06:03
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SlothfulCobra posted:House resurrected gambling because it was a good business model to take advantage of the existence of an economy. The specific casinos he resurrected were a matter of taste, but justifiable for the same reason that 3-Dog only has prewar records to play on the radio. There's not much of an entertainment industry in the postapocalyptic wasteland to draw upon. Well they are going to have mass starvation in a decade. Some people like to say the Mojave was a "brush war" for the NCR, something they weren't taking seriously and that's why the Legion was a threat. But all accounts say that the Mojave is a live or die moment for the NCR, or at least a very critical opportunity. They need the Dam and they need it bad.
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Nov 22, 2020 06:18
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JustaDamnFool posted:Any reading of House as more foreward thinking than the other factions at least needs to reconcile his forcing of the three major tribes of the strip to imitate pre-war culture. His first act upon awakening from a two hundred year sleep is to immediatley recreate the world as it was; that doesn't read to me as the actions of a man sans old world blues. He doesn't actually do anything with the tribes until he sees the NCR scouts- it's specifically a response to that situation to try to reclaim power, not just doing it for the sake of recreating the old world. House does seem to have the same rocketry interest that one of his many companies had prewar, but it's all motivated by a sort of contempt for the old world.
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Nov 22, 2020 07:16
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MariusLecter posted:Asteroid? Thought they went to the moon. Gaius Marius posted:I believe that's only if you correct the trajectory, which I most certainly couldn't do at level 3 Don't the ending slides mention surviving cultists shuffling back to Novac sheepishly? Pretty sure you just blast them into the salt lake north of Helios anyway regardless of where you targeted the rockets. Edit: yeah Ending for when you fix the rockets and side with anyone but the Legion posted:Though Novac was a low-priority target for the Legion, many of Novac's citizens died in its defense. In the weeks that followed, several Bright Followers returned to Novac to help restore its defenses, allowing it to remain independent of the NCR
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Nov 22, 2020 17:15
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NikkolasKing posted:Well they are going to have mass starvation in a decade. TBF they'll have access to the dam in the House and Wild Card endings they'll just need to negotiate for it. Also my understanding is their wars in the north and south are also pursuing other options for water and food.
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Nov 22, 2020 17:18
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Gaius Marius posted:It's not particularly difficult in my opinion. When the NCR showed up house was in an incredibly precarious position. He needed to get his own city state set up, make money, and avoid annexation with nearly no time to prepare. Being a businessman first and foremost can we fault him for falling back on an industry that he knew was recession proof and would attract enough tourists to force the NCR to defend the city at their own expense. My point wasn't that he established a gambling empire on the strip, its that he forces the Three Famlies into becoming bizarre knockoffs of various 50s stereotypes in order to run it. You could argue that there's some roundabout efficacy to this emulation, that obliging The Chairmen to talk like they do helps draw more buisness, but I don't think that its coincidental that in a game themed around an obsession with the past has a major player constructing a facsimile of a 200 year old dead culture.
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Nov 22, 2020 17:25
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JustaDamnFool posted:My point wasn't that he established a gambling empire on the strip, its that he forces the Three Famlies into becoming bizarre knockoffs of various 50s stereotypes in order to run it. You could argue that there's some roundabout efficacy to this emulation, that obliging The Chairmen to talk like they do helps draw more buisness, but I don't think that its coincidental that in a game themed around an obsession with the past has a major player constructing a facsimile of a 200 year old dead culture. Like Medieval Times, are the people who started up the franchise obsessed? Maybe. But the customers love the spectacle and pageantry of it all.
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Nov 22, 2020 17:31
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If Medieval Times was run by a 700 year old French noble with an iron fist I'd hope it would at least raise some eyebrows.
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Nov 22, 2020 17:47
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JustaDamnFool posted:If Medieval Times was run by a 700 year old French noble with an iron fist I'd hope it would at least raise some eyebrows. Keep talking 
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Nov 22, 2020 17:56
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The way I see it, House's version of "futurism" is rooted in trying to revive the Old World and continuing with that time period's ideas on what constitutes as future-thinking (space travel and exploration), and is really just a way for him to relive his glory days as the technocrat darling of Las Vegas. What House isn't interested in is moving forward with the post-post-apocalypse world of New Vegas. If he was, then his focus would've been on finding a solution for the food production problem, or creating facilities to produce medicine and medical equipment/devices (where Arcade says that people will run out of hospitals to raid for supplies eventually).
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Nov 22, 2020 18:18
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MariusLecter posted:Asteroid? Thought they went to the moon.
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Nov 22, 2020 18:25
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I first played NV in 2015 like I noted and I feel like, from what I've seen of the fandom. House has lost a lot of his original appeal given the everything that has happened in those five years. Dude just wants Capitalism. Space Capitalism, with him as the CEO. He's going to run this post-apocalyptic world like a business, not like those damned incompetent politicians. I originally was considering him because of his space plan but in retrospect, it was a lot of bullshit and even if any of it was true, House is not going to uplift humanity so space colonies. He's going to let the rich and powerful move into space and everyone else can stay on the polluted Earth. We know this from literally everything he does in game.
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Nov 22, 2020 18:28
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The Chairmen are really the only weird bringing back the past thing that House did, and that's only 10% House's personal tastes and 90% the game devs wanting to do some kind of referential commentary on Las Vegas. Benny sure seems like he took to the lingo like a fish to water. Nobody ever breaks character, if it is all just an act. Maybe the reason to bring back the rat pack is just because it's a cool aesthetic and everyone seems to agree. Everything else is pretty basically understandable. A high class luxury option, a low class sleazy option with drugs and hookers, neon signs, and Mr. New Vegas to run a radio station.
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Nov 22, 2020 19:11
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Yeah, I always imagined it as Mr. House showing the three families a bunch of old records, or whatever, and letting them pick out what ever style they like. Sort of like someone letting someone else go through their closet of old clothes to find something they like. If he's got a case of Old World Blues, he seems to have cleared it up by the time NV starts: "I've resurrected Vegas, spirit intact." Also, for what ever his faults, House is willing to tolerate the existence of other states; in fact, he relies on it. That's not something the NCR or especially not the Legion can claim. Edit: I still stand by House being the best choice for the Mojave, and to a certain degree, House himself doesn't matter. His winning is good for the NCR because it does not reward them for their imperial ambitions there. Abhorrence fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Nov 22, 2020 |
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Nov 22, 2020 19:29
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SlothfulCobra posted:The Chairmen are really the only weird bringing back the past thing that House did, and that's only 10% House's personal tastes and 90% the game devs wanting to do some kind of referential commentary on Las Vegas. Benny sure seems like he took to the lingo like a fish to water. Nobody ever breaks character, if it is all just an act. Maybe the reason to bring back the rat pack is just because it's a cool aesthetic and everyone seems to agree. House expressly says he nudged the Omertas in their direction and keeps them around because he has an odd fondness for the Chicago Outfit era of Vegas.
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Nov 22, 2020 21:37
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amigolupus posted:The way I see it, House's version of "futurism" is rooted in trying to revive the Old World and continuing with that time period's ideas on what constitutes as future-thinking (space travel and exploration), and is really just a way for him to relive his glory days as the technocrat darling of Las Vegas. That's a very interesting point. I wish house was more developed; the reclusive nature of the character means we're guessing more on some of how they intersect with the game's themes (which is why I was hoping rope kid would respond). We get caesar talking at length ofc, but for the other factions, it's what other people have to say that's also a key source of information. We don't get that with house other than an ongoing effort to automate people out of their jobs.
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Nov 22, 2020 22:15
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