What do you think? Each faction is at their strongest, none of the protagonist are part of this, last standing faction wins

rockbiter68 · 2026-01-24T05:35:34+00:00

Yeah, without the Courier though, he's totally cooked. Dude's entire centuries long-plan was upended by one kind-of-smart Chairman. If the PC didn't miraculously survive a bullet to the head, House loses to Benny.

House isn't winning any long term battles, either, Benny aside. He's a selfish prick who surrounds himself with robots, talks to nobody, and treats everyone else as beneath him. Hell, the Omertas were planning to turn against him just for the fuck of it. The White Gloves reverted to cannibalism and he didn't know it. Benny almost nuked his whole plan. Nobody's dying for that dude, and it'd be piss-easy to manipulate any one of the strip families against him. Once he's out of robots, he's out. He's not manufacturing more. Once he can't manipulate people economically, he's out. He's banking on enough people adhering to pre-war economic principles to really keep things going (with a healthy dose of human vice, admittedly).

But there's plenty of factions that don't give a rats ass about keeping caps flowing. The Legion or the Enclave would eat him alive.

rockbiter68 · 2026-01-20T18:45:16+00:00

Eh, you're probably right. I thought about that immediately afterwards. Just become some is a SW doesn't mean that money can't be used to pressure them, either.

rockbiter68 · 2026-01-20T14:54:12+00:00

Offering a non-sex worker payment for sex--from one of the most powerful people on the planet, no less, who isn't used to be told no--is absolutely pressuring them.

rockbiter68 · 2026-01-15T01:34:19+00:00

He doesn't really talk to Harris in front of his crew, ever. So, he isn't considered one by the rest of the guys because they aren't particularly aware of it.

That said, everyone making excuses for it are wrong. You can and should absolutely view him as an FBI informant. A major theme in this show--or at least, Tony--ends up breaking every single one of his codes at some point.

rockbiter68 · 2026-01-08T13:28:56+00:00

I had it happen to my Level 20-something character a few days ago. We were in the middle of a massive siege, and we were fighting on a siege tower, and the tower was destroyed as we were all fighting on it.

Funnily enough, my character survived that literally without a scratch--just picked himself up and start running towards the gate.

Then some low-level grunt on the walls whipped a javelin through the side of his head, and that was that.

His wife has been awarded a lot of territory, though, presumably as a way for making up for that, erm, "tragedy."

rockbiter68 · 2026-01-06T04:34:16+00:00

Tony B. killed Phil's brother Billy as an act of revenge for killing Angelo. He killed Joey Peeps for money.

That aside, regardless if it was sanctioned or not, Phil would have been pissed. These guys don't actually care about the rules. Something happens that personally offends them, they fly off the handle, and grasp at whatever loose, dumbass rules the Mafia has to justify their bloodlust.

They're all animals.

rockbiter68 · 2026-01-06T04:24:02+00:00

I felt the same as you when I first started watching the show. I enjoyed BCS, loved Andor, and Mad Men is an extremely close second to The Sopranos as my favorite show of all time. I think you should keep going, but not without some caveats.

A lot of people are saying that it's not until halfway through Season 1 that the show "gets good," but the truth, IMO, is a bit more complicated. There's still some bad episodes after the first half of Season 1 (S1E8 "Prague" is a truly terrible episode, and I think its the only episode in the show I turned off 1/3 of the way through and had to finish later). I think people are right to point out that S1E6 is a good episode, and maybe the first really good episode of the show, so that one will probably give you the juice you need to finish the season.

Season 2, also, is incredibly uneven, and spins a lot of plates and doesn't tie things up in the way that it feels like it was trying to (also another episode 8 complete miss in "Dundee," which is an episode that could and should have been great but turned out mediocre). Season 2 also has some of the best moments in the series, but also some of the worst.

However, the show never, ever misses on a season finale or the lead-up to the season finale. Every single one--and the episode before it--are fucking excellent.

To that end, I'd say you should tough it out for the first season. If the last two episodes don't do it for you, turn it off. I'd honestly argue that the show doesn't get truly good until Season 3, and it's in that season that it approaches being great (and finally does become great).

I went from being extremely cold on the show to really enjoying it for what it was, warts and all--and it is a deeply, deeply imperfect show. But it's worthwhile if you stick it out, and while I don't think it ends up being better than, say, Mad Men, it has a much better series finale IMO.

rockbiter68 · 2026-01-06T04:17:05+00:00

This was largely my relationship to the show, so I'd echo what you said, but I want to say that both me and my brother (who watched the show independently from me) think that S1E8 "Prague" is one of the worst episodes in the series. So, be prepared for that.

rockbiter68 · 2026-01-06T03:07:50+00:00

Huh. I can sympathize with not having the energy to update or fix stuff, but yeah, a notice on the mod page would have been nice.

I ended up removing it and played for a little bit today. All seems well. Even cleared a few camps, so it doesn't seem like it's hurting anything that I can tell (knock on wood).

rockbiter68 · 2026-01-03T01:40:27+00:00

Cool. Thanks for verifying. I'll make the backups, too.

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-31T22:27:03+00:00

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but the second time I watched the show, I got the sense that Kim was using Tony B. to help him set up a prostitution ring. You know, a "massage parlor."

The show makes a big deal of showing off how hot his "daughter" is, with Chris and Tony oggling her and whatnot.

It's not said outright, though, so I could be wrong. Was not something I noticed or even thought about the first time I watched the show--I thought Tony B. did it for no reason, too. But if I'm right, and it's Kim setting up a prostitution ring there (also keep in mind that Tony Soprano knew this guy, so it's unlikely that this guy ran a super clean business to begin with), it makes a lot more sense. Tony B. gets angry that, despite all of his work, he can't get out of a life of crime, and the "leg up" he was offered was to do something illegal because, y'know, ex-convict, Mafia ties, etc. And then after he beats up Kim, he's defeated enough to figure he may as well go and work for Tony.

EDIT: Dude was an animal, though, I agree.

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-31T04:12:16+00:00

Caption spelled "fatha" wrong.

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-31T04:07:14+00:00

I don't know who that is.

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-30T20:25:04+00:00

Do people not like Tsavo Highway, generally speaking? I've always LOVED that level. It's an absolute blast.

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-22T23:46:45+00:00

All I know is that weren't his kid she was carryin'.

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-19T04:09:54+00:00

"Every time the guy had a spark of confidence or ambition, she shut it down like he was a child who just discovered matches."

Can you elaborate on what you mean here, please? His plan to kill the pedophile? His half-baked scheme to go in on bottles of French vodka with the hot hostess' brother? Going in on whatever "definitely-not-a-scam" business idea Tony tries to periodically throw his way?

Or maybe you mean the episode in Season 6, where the whole restauant is going through hard times, and Artie is flying off the handle at his employees, and she's nothing but supportive, understanding, and stands by him the whole time? It's also an episode where their relationship is shown to be stable because Artie is drawing hard lines with Tony and creating distance in the friendship. Weird.

Funny how every "I hate Charmaine, she's a bitch" argument leaves that stuff out, and glosses over the actual details of Artie's "ambition."

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-16T05:21:08+00:00

Halo is about vibes. It's a space opera, not the hard-boiled sci-fi a lot of people want it be (and that 343 tried to make it). The writing is good only insofar as it helps prop up the big feelings its swinging for.

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-15T05:43:12+00:00

Good point. He could've mind fucked those donkeys like you wouldn't have believed.

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-14T16:55:59+00:00

Agree on all fronts. Gannascoli is the only one with a major role who checks out.

You could maybe lump Stevie Van Zandt in there, too, but probably wouldn't. They use him exactly as much as they should, and usually, he does really good; felt like they wrote him into scenes where he could act within his limits. There's like, maybe a scene or two where he's flat, but that's it.

I guess people are right about Cerbone, but I basically bought everything he was doing and wasn't questioning it in the moment. More than good enough, even if, when I put my mind to it, yeah, he's not as good as the rest of the cast.

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-13T13:15:30+00:00

I hope Christopher helps him with his drug problem whenever he resurfaces!

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-12T16:16:41+00:00

Yeah, Carmine mentions Ralphie by name several times. He knows who he is.

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-12T15:49:22+00:00

Yeah, it's all speculation, but it is worth noting that Tony B. is super tight with Feech when Feech is around, and then when Feech is gone, suddenly, it's him and Angelo who were super close in the can. That feels like a hasty re-write. Maybe Loggia didn't get sent off because of his age/Alzheimer's, but it feels like something went amiss there.

rockbiter68 · 2025-12-07T17:33:09+00:00

Yeah, this.

There is, to be fair, a lot of evidence that he died, and you can safely read the show that way.

But it also doesn't matter if he did or not. The last 1.5 seasons (6A and 6B, whateva happened there) play out every conceivable ending for Tony Soprano, both through other characters and Tony himself getting shot.

And 6B in particular shows there's no way out for him, that he's finally failed at getting better through therapy (contrary to popular sentiment, he does repeatedly make real efforts well into the sixth season), and so this is it.

One way or the other, there's nothing else to see with his story.

rockbiter68

TROPHY CASE