Fallout New Vegas Caravan Guide

Fallout New Vegas Caravan Guide
by some anon who just summarized the wiki article

Theory: You are two traders bartering items to each other, but only one of you will walk away having made better deals and more money.

Bidding: Bidding starts directly after the initial proposal. The opponent will place the initial bid. You can match their bid and subsequently raise the bid if you wish. You cannot bid lower than your opponent.

Building your deck: A caravan deck consists of at least 30 cards. You may have any amount of any card in your deck. Duplicate cards from the same set of cards are not allowed.

Gameplay: Caravan is a game which consists of two opponents playing cards from their hand into three piles, known as "caravans" or "tracks". The act of playing a card is known as a "bid".

Objective: The objective is to raise the value of your caravans by placing cards (bids) onto them. A winning condition is met when all three caravan tracks have a value higher than 20 but less than 27. A caravan with a totaled value of 21-26 is considered "sold".

Initial Round: Each opponent shuffles their deck and draws eight cards. Your opponent will place his first card on the first of three tracks, furthest to his right. Only numbered cards or aces are allowed at the start of a track. At this point you place a card onto your own caravan track parallel to your opponent's first play. This continues until all tracks on both sides have one card in them. You may not place any cards on your opponent's deck during the initial round. Once all tracks have one card, the initial round ends and the game begins.

Playing: After the initial round ends you may do one of three things during your turn:
	- Place a card on one of your caravans or on one of your opponent's caravans.
	- Discard a card from your hand.
	- Discard a caravan track (such as one that is over 26) by removing all its cards from the table.

Tracks either ascend or descend in value. eg: 2, 3, 5, 10 -or- 10, 9, 3, 2. You may not play a card onto a card of the same value. Playing a card onto a card with a matching suit will reverse the track direction if applicable.

Card Values:
- All numerical cards hold their numerical value.
- Ace is worth 1.
- Jacks remove the card it's played on from the table, along with any other face cards attached to it.
- Kings double the value of the card it's played on. ex: 4 * 2 = 8
	- King played on a King: Doubles the result of the first king. ex: 4 * 2 = 8, 8 * 2 = 16
- Queens reverse the direction of the caravan and changes the card's suit to match the Queen's. Queens can only be played on the leading (top) card.
- Jokers remove all cards sharing the same value of the card it's played on from both player's caravans.
	- Joker played on Ace: Removes all cards of the Ace's suit from the game, except those whose suit has been changed by a Queen. This will not affect any card played after it. ex: Joker on Ace of Spades removes all numerical Spades from the game.
	- Joker played on numerical cards: Remove all cards of the same value from the table except the one that's being played on. ex: Joker on a 5 removes all 5's from the table except the one being played on.
You may attach up to three face cards to a numerical/Ace card.
Cards discarded by the player or removed by face cards do not return to either deck.

Winning: When a player has all three caravans between 20 and 27, they win. If two or all three of your caravans are tied with the opponent's, the game continues until one is outbid.

Tips:
- The official rules state you are not allowed to discard from your hand during the initial round, however all versions of New Vegas allow you to discard as many cards as you want before your first card is played. After that, discarded a card consumes your turn. This bug allows you to load your hand with hot cards. Abuse this only if it's high stakes and you want to win.
- If you've got the latest patches for New Vegas, opponents WILL play Face cards on your caravan and they will do it often. On a vanilla install, they won't play on your cards, completely breaking the point of game.
- Hold on to your Jacks. Keep one or two in order to bust your opponent when you're losing.
- Realize that your opponent will outbid (bust) your caravan if you get it between 21-27 too quickly.
- Suit-matching cards have the highest chances of having an available card to play on.
- Rules of the Joker card prevent you from having as many suit-matching numerical cards in your deck as possible.