So I finally figured out how to actually play Caravan, but I've run into three issues.

1.) The deck Ringo gives you contains one of every card, so what is the point of collecting any more afterward?

2.) New cards linger in your inventory rather than being added to your deck, possibly because your deck already has one of every card.

3.) No one actually bets against you, ever; you cannot gamble on Caravan, at all.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this happening for everybody?

Playing Caravan is worthless, just stick to gambling in the casinos =)

Scratch the last one; I updated the game and it appears to be fixed.

I am genuinely surprised.

You might want to re-read the rules of Caravan. You are allowed to have multiple cards of the same suit *only* when they come from different decks. By this, you could have 3 or more different 5 of spades.

Why is this important? Because of the Joker rule: you can remove multiples of the same suit by putting a Joker on any Ace on the table. Therefore if someone had a 9 of hearts starting their caravan and placed an 8 and a 5 on it (giving a total of 22) you could place a Joker on the Ace of hearts (whether they played it or you did) and remove all of the hearts on the table (both theirs and yours). This would really stump them from selling their caravan as they would have to have a 4, 3 and a 2 or Ace. Or they could use a same suit change. Still, the point of the game is to force the other player to lay more cards.

Remember this strategy: if you are in danger of losing, make sure you tie at least one caravan. The game goes on until the deck is spent if there is a tied caravan. Once you are winning bids in the other two caravans remove the tied caravan stack. This will cause your opponent to win the previously tied bid but you will instantly win the game (as it is only played until all three bids have been won).

Caravan is brutally easy to play and is a simple way to make money off people if you know how to play it. Just remember to make sure the vendors that play have a good number of caps in their inventory or they won't be betting much at all. Winning 4 caps is pointless.

Thanks for the clearification, Havik; I didn't realize you could have multiples of the same card from different casino sets.

Concerning the remaining issue of cards not being added to the deck, http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=34855, which should suffice until it's handled by an official patch.

Hey, I'm struggling with issue #3 (No one actually bets against you, ever; you cannot gamble on Caravan, at all.).
Patch didn't solve it!

Could you make a custom fix for it as well?:) Pretty please.

I don't understand how to play it at all, so I decided screw it and I'll just stick with blackjack.

It's so easy to play once you get the swing of it because the AI for caravan is absolutely terrible. They never play modifier cards on your cards and they never play any modifier cards except for using a king to double their own card value or a jack to fix their stack. I've never seen a jack played on my hand, a king played on my hand (to double a stack over the max bid), a queen played on my hand (to potentially stump the stack) or at all. I've never seen a joker played by the AI either. They also never pull a stack to force a win. I'm wondering if the people who designed caravan overlooked some strategies within the rules of the game.

Remember, the game isn't over until all 3 stacks have bids. If you lock an opponent in a tie on one stack, he will work on getting his other stacks up to a fault - even then, I've never seen him pull the tied stack to get the win:

Him 21 26 22You 17 26 21

If it's his turn he can win the game by yanking the middle stack. But he never has for me and I've beaten the AI 26 times with 1 loss. You generally can hold onto the middle tie until you've got winning bids in the other two stacks and then yank the middle stack on him for a win.

This game is so brutally easy that I have way too much money due to one incredibly wealthy and eccentric player in the the town of .

The only thing wrong with Caravan is the odd 'no betting' thing that I think the latest patch fixed, and the fact that it's pretty hard to realize you need to move the cards down, not just left and right, to play them.

Beyond that it's a pretty solid game, even if the AI is poor at it.