I think Vulpes would do a better job as Caesar than Lanius, especially if Lanius continued leading the military. They would make a good team as long as they got along. If Caesar named Vulpes as his successor, I wonder if Lanius would honor it.
Without sheer force of personality which Caesar exudes, it'd be hard to maintain a single empire like that. A West and East situation with Lanius lording over the more disparate East whilst Vulpes better handles the more developed West is a match made in Hell frankly. If this was a post-Caesar situation then Vulpes would better handle all the finesse-necessary stuff with politics/finding holdouts whereas Lanius can maintain the status quo in Arizona but also support the West if necessary with the West providing him stuff the East is probably lacking like water and food.
I can see it.
I was playing more TTW today and got to Little Lamplight. Joseph's story about how Little Lamplight was founded makes a lot more sense in a context where Fallout 3 was set closer to the day of the bombs dropping. I believe someone else said it in this thread. I can't get the story in isolation unfortunately. He delivers the story with emotion, as though he personally witnessed the horrible shit done by the "mungos".
It's been a while but my favourite little moments of 3 are still there for the most part. Froze the Tenpenny Quest because I legit hate doing the "good" option and the "evil" option is also stupid, and I don't think I have anything new to contribute to that convo. Roy Phillips is a faggot and is the lynchpin for why the whole thing is fucked. The two other ghouls with him are fine, one of them is there pretty much just to make you feel bad (the girl). The Tenpenny residents you have to convince are 80% shit, but Dashwood, the doctor (the only black person in Tenpenny tower), Comrade Chen, and a few others, are reasonable on the subject even if they have reservations. Tenpenny himself snipes randos but by virtue of allowing Roy and the ghouls in the tower, is a more moral person than Roy Phillips (blowing up Megaton wasn't even Tenpenny's idea, that was all Burke).
The gall of killing Roy (and just Roy) resulting in 3-Dog shitting on you is genuinely bizarre and feels like an oversight or a product of laziness rather than a legitimate intention of the game. A part of the reason it feels like laziness is Bethesda put in
good residents, seemingly for the purpose of
not making "kill them all" the no-brainer pick. The difference between this quest go from "bullshit" to "decent" is all in 3-Dog's reaction, and it's nuts they didn't record one more line. Tonally, 3-Dog could've been morose about it being said they died but then shit on Roy for wanting to have his cake (live in Tenpenny Tower) and eat it too (kill all the human occupants). Or have there be an immediate confrontation between Roy and the guard keeping him out, with the confrontation ending in the human putting his weapon away and Roy shooting him in the back or something. Kill Roy, then one more speech check to prevent Roy's two companions getting lynched with him, then you're done. You lose Tenpenny's arms merchant, but get the ghoul mask and a semi-decent ending.
But yeah, still going through it. Using the Uranium Fever modlist via wabbajack unlocked. There's some bullshit locations added via a mod called "World of Pain" or something but it's all still enjoyable. It's been so long since I've played 3 I genuinely forgot where Dad is and so had to follow the quest properly. Have to re-find Evergreen Mills just to go West of it to find the lead star of Taken. I feel like I'm going the wrong way if I'm at Lamplight but I'm still having fun.
My favourite part of the Bigtown quest is training the residents at the end to fight off the super mutans (I go for the robot repair just go have a couple of bots idling around thereafter) and I'm not sure why. I recall there being a similar thing in Dragon Age Origins but maybe I'm just partial to the whole "train/help a bunch of shitters fend for themselves"-trope. Fallout 3 feels like it doesn't excel at stuff but it does a decent job of making it feel like you're the prime mover. Whilst the other games have you do greater feats, I think 3 does the whole power fantasy thing the best, probably. It's been a while but I don't think 4's radio acknowledges the player character as directly as 3 does. I think that's how 3 manages to endear me still.
Maybe I'm just talking out my ass because of recency bias and need to justify sinking 15+ hours in the Capital Wasteland.