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I don't mean smartest as in only science, i meant smartest overall like tactical thinking, strategy, knows the best and most effective way to deal with a problem and come up with solutions, charisma, large scale thinking, small scale thinking etc.

Smartest Fallout 4 Leader
Elder Maxson, Desdemona or Father?

Smartest Fallout 3 Leader
Colonel Autumn or Elder Lyon?

Smarter New Vegas Leader
General Oliver, Mr. House, or Caesar?

For the poll, pick the overall smartest one out of the three games.

Mr. House, easily. He was prepared for the nuclear war, and stayed in control of New Vegas, a valuable settlement, for 200+ years.

Shaun, Neither and Mr. House.

Maxson is a racist straight out of English fairy tales that has unexplainably managed to grow the Brotherhood to a greater power, from a very young age. The other is your arrogant scientist son, who couldn't even foresee a breach being made, and an abolitionist that gets tactical advice from a medical doctor, and an Assaultron.

In my opinion, both Autumn and Lyon are idiots. Lyon couldn't even control about half of the Brotherhood when he finally made it to DC and changed his plans. Then, after Three, he distributed water out for free, to anyone who wanted some. Autumn believes that America can be revived by poisoning the fresh water supply with a chemical that kills mutants, and that they the Enclave aren't mutants...

Mr. House is the oldest non-cryogenically frozen human. He was an orphan that worked his way up to CIT and founded the most profitable businesses in the world. He's also a genius in robotics and sciences. Having calculated the end of the world, and creating a defense system to protect Las Vegas from Chinese missiles. He preserved his body for 200 years, and had planned very far ahead. Oliver will send armies of soldiers to die and Caesar believes copying Augustus Caesar won't end badly...

House, no contest.

The F3 choices are a little lackluster. Autumn was brutal but unimaginative. Lyons was compassionate but largely ineffective given the scale of the resources at his disposal.

Possibly better choices:

Protector Henry Casdin: Head of the Outcasts. Kept regular patrols running with far more limited resources and generally did the job that Lyons claimed he was doing.

Eulogy Jones: Successfully ran a slaver operation that effectively scoured half the map of settlements. Maintaining an operation like that on such limited resources suggests considerable tactical and strategic acumen. Not lacking in charisma, either.

[edit]

"results" -> "resources"

Can't argue with that. The only intellect in F3 that could challenge him would be John Henry Eden, and Eden pretty much disqualifies himself with his massive miscalculation regarding the Lone Wanderer.

(Admittedly, House can fall to Courier Six, but he at least takes reasonable precautions, and doesn't let the player talk him to death).

[edit]

Of course, you could argue that Eden does a fine job of running the Enclave and things only start to fall apart after Autumn starts undermining his authority.

House is a terrible leader though

>He failed to correctly predict when the war would happen.

>He failed to be prepared for the war, and was sent into a coma for a century when his systems crashed for it.

>Even after waking up, he just sat around on his ass for years until the NCR showed up, where he then quickly gathered a bunch of tribal group together to build some walls when he could have already had an established city for years that would have been harder to take.

>He failed to pick a reasonable successor, which caused Benny to betray him.

>He failed to pick loyal tribals for his city, which is why all of the three families go behind his back in some way or another

>He failed to set up a reliable system between his tower and the vault were he stored his robot army

House has literally failed at every single thing hes done since slightly before the war.

Not sure who I'd pick at the moment, but it's http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27091

Speaking of the leaders, I don't really know who's the "smartest", but here's an interesting little tidbit from Sawyer about New Vegas (and it's pretty cool that he still wishes to discuss about the game at this length after all these years...):

http://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/133867000061/3-disclaimers-i-love-new-vegas-love-the-legion

While Mister House is certainly the most INTELLIGENT of the various characters, I tend to think he and John Henry Eden both suffer from a low wisdom score if that makes sense. John Henry Eden being, of course, a super-computer is objectively more intelligent than any human being even with House's cybernetic tools. The problem is that John Henry Eden is blinded by all of the various presidents prejudices and flaws being merged into his brain. In House's case, he's attempting to rebuild Las Vegas exactly as it was and that myopia of vision is something to be looked down upon rather than lauded.

Basically, House has no desire to engage with the Wasteland as is but wants to make it into his snowglobe.

Smartest leader? I think House is the clear choice here. He's not the best leader by any stretch of the imagination, but he is a leader, and is easily one of the most intelligent characters in the Fallout universe.

Maxson. He managed to take the ragtag EC BoS and turn them into a military powerhouse - He even had an airship constructed.

Now, I personally feel that their role in Fallout 4 is far too grand. I still do not understand how the EC BoS managed to turn into the power force that they are in Fallout 4. Let alone construct an airship.

Because they have all of the Capital Wasteland under their control and all of the Enclave's military resources?

True, but that still does not explain how they thought up the blueprints to an airship and actually constructed a viable one. Unless it is explained and I just missed it