Watched a couple of videos on how to play caravan and got the gist of it. However I felt that their versions were a little incomplete and after playing several games i've got a better strategy. First off for anyone looking for a good amount of caps your best bet is the female merchant in the building where Cassidy is located. Played several games against her and she can have up to 2100 caps on her or more. Best part is successive games just lower her amount instead of completely depleting her of those caps. (Played her for 2100 caps, then 1500, then 1200, then 1000, then 700, then 500 *broad estimates* which totals 7000 caps in 1 go.)

Caravan Information/Rules:

You are first introduced to Caravan by Ringo following the Goodsprings line *maybe another line i'm not sure*. He will give you a Holotape and a starter deck to assist you in learning the rules. This game isn't played in the casinos due to it being too slow, but it allows for larger sums of money to be won. The money won can be NCR money, Caps, and Legionary Currency. Ultimately the goal of Caravan is to get a stack of cards to a total of 26 numerical wise.

Now just like Real Life card games like Yugioh or Magic there are ways you can mess with your opponent. These come in the form of Jokers, Jacks, Queens, and Kings which can be placed ontop of your opponents stack. This can really hurt your opponent buying you time to complete your "Caravan" or causing you to outright win the game.


Your job is to assemble a quote Caravan of cards and there are 3 areas to assemble them in. Cards can go in either ascending order or descending order, but you cannot change this once you put that second card down. An example of this would be putting a 7 ontop of a 10 that is ontop of a 9.
9
10
7 *you can't put that 8 there because of the 10 since you are creating an ascending numerical pile*

Now this can be broken by putting a queen ontop of the ten then putting the 7 on there since queens can reverse the direction/order of the cards.

Strategy:

The quickest strategy i've heard of is to get 3 tens, then some 9s or atleast one 9 and some sevens. I have to admit I followed this strategy and it works for the most part, but it isn't exactly fool proof. Getting this combination can be tricky and there are rare chances for a stale mate if you can't draw any cards or have a way of messing with your opponent's hand. Countering this is relatively easy, but keeping an open mind and putting a bit of thought into it.

First you will want one 6 of any card type then have the rest of your cards be four 7s, four 8s, four 9s, four 10s, etc... to four Kings. Now you can choose to keep two jokers in your hand to play with, but these are dangerous at the best of times. If you want you can run with a pair of aces to even things out to reach the 30 card minimum hand. I must also warn players that the cards you add/subtract can become bugged so you may have to go back and forth with the arrow keys until you get it to work the way it should be working.

Example of a good hand:

2 kings
2 10s
1 6
1 9
2 7s

Playing this out I would throw down the 10s then the 9 for my final opening hand. Once the game starts i'll add the King to the 10 to make it 20 since Kings act as card multipliers. After letting the computer go I would put the 6 on the 10 with the king and boom 26 the highest magic number. Now during that time i've drawn cards with one being another 9 and the other a 7. With the other 10 out i'll throw a 9 ontop of that then a 7 to make it 26.

Here's a little problem though my opponent has also gotten 26 by putting a 10, 8, 7, and Ace together. To disrupt this I throw a king ontop of their 10 to make their pile suddenly 36 so boom their caravan is over and thus can't be used. That pile is now out and completely worthless possibly leaving me the victor, but will play on acting as if they have a pile worth over 21. During my draws i've now accumulated a Jack and an 8 which I can use the jack to my advantage.

I'll take my jack and put it on one of the highest possible card in the opponent's caravan to remove that card. For an example we'll say the opponent has a 5, 7, 8 plus Queen and a 5 to make 25. Don't care what we put it on so i'll put it on the 7 reducing thing to 18. By this time i'll have a 3rd caravan worth over 21 minimum points thus having won the game.

Example of a Bad Hand:

3 Kings
2 Queens
1 Jack
1 Joker
1 Ten

This hand is complete garbage, but it can be salvaged if we eliminate the appropriate cards. First i'll select the Joker and press Q (Don't know if that can be changed) to remove that card from my current hand. Remember you can discard as many cards as you want and only officially start the game when you put down your first card. Now we'll say I get lucky and get a 9 in my hand so i'll go ahead and remove 1 of the queens. Next card I get is trash and I get a Joker so i'll remove that card with my luck netting me an 8. Now i'll remove the other Queen and with my luck again nets me another 9.

Now I have 3 kings, two 9s, 1 jack, one 8, and 1 Ten which is a promising hand, but i'll push it one step further by eliminating a king from my hand. Eliminating the king nets me another 8 so now I have two kings, two 9s, 1 jack, two 8s, and 1 ten. I can certainly work with this now and i'll start by throwing down the ten and two 9s.

10 9 9

With that down I draw a card which is the fourth and final king in my deck. I'll take that king and put it ontop of the 9 making 18.

10 9 18

Now i'll add one of my two 8s to the 18 to make 26 and boom 1 complete caravan already. However my opponent is doing well and has 24 which isn't enough to beat my 26, but it's close. Moving on I have a choice of putting down a king ontop of the 9 or throwing my jack ontop of the opponent's stack of 24. I'll stick with a plan and put the king ontop of the 9 to make 18. Drawing my card I net a 6 which gives me a chance to make 26 with my final king and my 10 on the table. However the opponent makes their second Caravan reach 26 along with my 2nd caravan being at 26. Now it becomes a problem, but I can use my jack to kill that 26 pile or use my final king to make their 26 go over the max to whatever I want.

I'll choose to use the jack on their 26 eliminating their best card reducing the total. Now they only have 1 pile above the 21 minimum so I am free to make my final dash to 26.


Sadly it does get a bit complicated, but here's a couple of rules I follow:

1. Make sure to have atleast 1 king or Jack in your hand to mess with the opponent. This will negate stalemates and finish games more quickly preventing you from having to quick load. Had atleast 3 games go to stalemate with us both having 26 for our caravans. Just glad the computer didn't figure out how to use Kings or Jacks on me.

2. There's more than 1 way to reach 26 not just 10+9+7 or 7+9+10. By keeping things open you don't constrain yourself and leave possibilities open.

Combos: 10+8 with a King ontop of the 8 = 26, 10+king with a 6 ontop = 26, the mentioned 10, 9, 7 = 26, and 9+king with an 8 ontop = 26 as well.

3. Mess with your opponent if you feel you are about to lose. I rather sacrifice my king to put it ontop of the opponents 10 to make their caravan 36 than lose the game waiting for a special card.

4. Before you put a card down look at your hand and discard what you don't like. You can discard as many cards as you want from your hand to get what you want.

5. Jacks will remove the card from the opponents caravan, but can be used on yours as well. You make a mistake adding a 6 ontop of that 10, 9, 7 combo just add a jack to that 6 and boom back to 26 you go.


After playing a bit you will get the hang of it. I was pretty much a newb when I first played it and didn't realize I needed to use the left right arrow keys to move my card selection around . Hopefully I can make a video to go along with this guide to illustrate my point. (Also please don't mention that there are already videos up on how to play caravan. I know this i'm making a written guide for those that like to read the information instead of watching it. )

You can actually make even more caps by buying up all of her junk so she (her or any of the merchants that plays caravan as well like Primm and Novac) will have more caps to play with. You can then win it all back then sell all the junk to another merchant like the Gun Runners.

I've been doing this to buy up all the extra chems and weapon mods I find...

Yes, you can stack the deck so that you can win after only laying down 8 or 9 cards (10+K w/ 6, 8+K w/ 10, 9+K w/ 8).

Wake me when the AI plays face cards on my side of the table...

Once you get the basics its fairly easy to beat people. The weakness of the NPCs is face card effects, which they will never play on your cards, but you can play on theirs. Simply doubling one card can put one of their caravans out or using a Joker can remove their entire stack. I hope they update so its not so easy to win anymore...

Tip: Kings are fairly valuable, you can reach 26 with a King, a Ten, and a 5 on an Ace. Kings double the card you place them on.

Tip: Keep most of your face cards to a low amount with the exception being Aces and Kings. Aces should max at around 4-6 and Kings at 4-8 (Depending on how many higher numbered cards you have)

Tip: Queens are only necessary if your using many different suites. I usually keep my deck at two different suites so I only use 2 Queens.

Tip: High numbered cards can help you reach a the winning caravan number faster but your going to get stuck if you need small numbers to overcome an opponent. Even out the amount of each number with certain cards (Ones that allow you to reach 26 fast) more common. For example six Aces, 5s, 10s, and Kings and two over all the others (Just an example). This gives you an advantage of having the necessary cards to instantly reach 26.

Someone in another thread suggested making a deck out of Kings, 8s, and 10s. I did that, and never lost another game. You just play a 10, play an 8, and play a King on the 8 for each column. It got kind of boring, though. Nowadays I throw some 6s in there, so you can play 10-8-King or 10-King-6. Not much variety, but it's something. Hoping to make a deck that only uses 2-3 suits, too, for more flexibility in when things are played.

Yup and it's quite sad really i've seen the computer use a Jack on a stack of 26 which I bet they meant to put on my 26.

I usually go with five each of 6, K, 7, 9, and then I have six 10s if possible (since 10 is used in both of my victory patterns). I'll then throw in 3 jacks and an ace and call it a day.

I almost never use the Ace, and in fact until they fix the AI so the opponent plays against your caravans, I'd replace it with another K because the K can help me win or help me de-rail the enemy.

In the discard phase before I've played any, I'll usually throw out a few of the cards of those in the pattern that I happened to draw less of. So if I mostly drew cards from 10-K-6 then I'll throw away a few 7s and 9s hoping to get more 10-K-6 before I start. If I mostly draw 10-9-7 then I'll throw away K and 6 to draw up to more of the other pattern. In the event that I get equal numbers initially of my 2 patterns, I'll favor 10-K-6 since it is more flexible.

But yeah, if the computer played against your columns, even with a simply pattern of "any time I draw a royal card, if I cant win immediately otherwise, there is a 50% chance I'll play it against my opponent" then the game would drastically change.