Caravan (game)

Caravan is a card game designed by the developers of Fallout: New Vegas.

Inside of game
While traveling throughout the Mojave Wasteland, you will encounter NPCs who will be available for a game of Caravan. In order to play Caravan you must possess a full deck (30+ cards), however the dialog option appears even if you don't have enough cards. (PS3 confirmed) If an attempt is made to play with an insufficient number of cards, a message appears informing the player they need at least 30 cards to play a hand of Caravan.

Obtaining a deck
Cards can be obtained from merchants and a free deck can be received from Ringo in Goodsprings.

Building A Deck
Caravan decks are comprised of at least 30 cards from one or more traditional playing card sets. The deck may have any number of cards of any type that suits a player's strategy, although it cannot have duplicate cards from the same set. For example, a King of Spades from Set A and a King of Spades from Set B is acceptable, but more than one King of Spades from Set A would be illegal.

Rules
Caravan is played with two players building three opposing piles (or "caravans") of numbered cards. The goal is to outbid your opponent's caravan with the highest value of numbered cards without being too light (under 21) or overburdened (over 26). The game begins with each player taking eight cards from their deck and placing either one numerical card or ace on each caravan. Players may not discard during this initial round.

Once both players have started their three caravans, each player may do ONE of the following on their turn:

1. Play one card and draw a new card from his deck into his hand.

2. Discard one card from his hand and draw a new card from his deck.

3. Disband one of his three caravans by removing all cards from that pile.

Caravans have a direction, either ascending or descending numerically, and a suit. The suit is determined with the first card placed on the caravan, the direction by the second. All subsequent cards must continue the numerical direction or match the suit of the previous card. Cards of the same numerical value cannot be played in sequence, regardless of suit. Face cards can be attached to numeric cards in any caravan and affect them in various ways.

Card Values
Joker: Played against ace, 2-10. Effects change based on whether it's an ace or a number (see below). Multiple jokers may be played on the same card.

Ace: Value of 1. Jokers played on aces remove all other non-face cards of the ace's suite from the table. Eg. a joker played on an Ace of Spades removes all spades (except face cards and that card, specifically) from the table.

2-10: Listed value. Jokers played on these cards remove all other cards of this value from the table. Eg. a joker played on a 4 of Hearts removes all 4s (other than that card, specifically) from the table.

Jack: Played against an ace, 2-10. Removes that card, along with any face cards attached to it.

Queen: Played against ace, 2-10. Reverses the current direction of the hand and changes the current suit of the hand. Multiple queens may be played on the same card.

King: Played against ace, 2-10. Adds the value of that card again. Eg. a king played on a 9 adds 9 to that pile. Multiple kings may be played on the same card for multiplicative effects. Eg. 4+king=8. 4+king+king=16.

Winning
A player's caravan is considered sold when the value of its cards is over 20 and under 27. The other player may still outbid by increasing the value of their opposing pile while staying within the 21-26 range. When each of the three competing caravans has sold, the game is over. In the event of a tie between two matched caravans, the game continues until all three caravans have sold. The player with two or more sales wins the pot.

Clarifications
The official instructions are a little brief. A more thorough explanation can be found below.

Winning condition in plain English
Winning is easy to understand if you grasp the fact that the tech writer who wrote the official rules goofed a very important point of clarity. There are only three caravans on the board. Your three piles on your side are your bids for each caravan, and likewise for your opponent. Six bids, three caravans. As soon as all three caravans are sold, the game ends. The player who has the highest bid on at least two of the caravans at game end wins the pot.

A caravan is sold when at least one of its bids falls between the range of 21 - 26 AND the bids for that caravan are different amounts. Until all three caravans are sold, either player can keep adjusting the bids on any caravan! Only when all three meet the "sold" criteria does play stop and you determine who has two or more of the highest bids within the 21 - 26 range.

Now here's the tricky part: a caravan with tied bids (e.g., both bids are 21, or both are 23, both are 26) is not yet sold, so something must happen to break the tie. This can be done in many ways, such as reducing your opponent's bid by playing a jack on one of the cards in their bid, or playing a king on one of the cards in their bid to make their bid exceed 26. Or say you're tied with 24 each and you discard for a few turns until you finally draw an ace and increase your bid to 25, breaking the tie. Or say all three of your bids are 26 each but you opponent has one bid at 26 too, so that caravan is in a tied state. In this case you can simply wipe out your own bid (remove your stack for that caravan) and you'll instantly win the pot because the final caravan becomes sold, the game ends, and you'll have two winning bids to your opponent's one winning bid.

Gameplay
Each player starts out with 8 cards in his hand drawn from his deck. Players take turns placing their opening bids for each of the three caravans (i.e. columns on the table). Once both players have played their three cards regular gameplay commences. At this point there will be 3 columns and 2 rows of cards on the table.

During regular gameplay, players can either add number cards (Ace=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10) to one of their three columns or add face cards (Joker, Jack, Queen, King) to any existing number card on the table. Number cards can only be appended at the bottom of your own cards, whereas face cards can be added to any of your own cards or to any of the opponent's cards. Whenever you play a card you get to draw a new one from your deck.

In order to append a number card it has to match the suit (and be a different number than the previous card) or match the current direction (ascending numbers or descending numbers). Direction is determined by looking at the previous two cards in the column. At the beginning of the game there is only a single card in each column and therefore no direction has been set yet and you can play a higher or a lower card. Once there are at least two cards those need to be checked to determine the current direction. Example: if there is a column consisting of "9-Hearts; 4-Spades;3-Diamonds" then the direction is currently descending because 3 is smaller than 4. You could play any 2 card or any Ace. You could also play any Diamond card, except for 3-Diamonds.

Face cards (Joker, Jack, Queen, King) have special abilities and can be attached,that is placed next to, any number card currently on the table.

King: Doubles the value of the card(s) it attaches to. Example: played on a 7-Hearts this card will now be worth 14 points. If a second King is attached to it the value would now be 28.

Queen: Changes the column's direction (ascending becomes descending and vice versa) and changes the suit to match the Queen card's. Example: if there is a column consisting of "9-Hearts; 4-Spades;3-Diamonds", attaching a "Q-Clubs" to the "3-Diamonds" means that you can now play any Clubs card, or any number card higher than 3.

Jack: By playing this against a number card it acts as an eraser. The number card (and all its attachments) are removed from the table.

Joker: Similar to a Jack, the Joker removes cards, but it does so on a larger scale. All cards of a matching number or suit get removed from the table. Example: When played against a 6-Spades, all other 6 cards regardless of their suit will be removed from the table. When played against an Ace-Diamonds all other Diamond number cards on the table will be removed. Please note that the card you attach the Joker to will NOT be removed.

During your turn instead of playing a card you can also discard a card or discard an entire column of your cards.

Bugs
Currently it's impossible to add purchased cards to the deck in the pc version. It is also difficult to select cards when editing your deck, because the card that's highlighted is often not the card you're selecting.

Also it seems that the same bug is found on the US PS3 version of the game. Seeing as it sometimes causes the game to freeze when buying large amounts of cards from a vendor.

In the original PC version there is a bug where no matter who you play caravan with none of the NPCs will bet, the value always stays at zero regardless if you try to raise the bet, and this occurs even after you have completed in game challenge, Know When To Fold 'em (5/5). This was addressed in the second patch.

List of NPCs who play Caravan

 * Ringo (Gives the PC one of his spare decks)
 * Johnson Nash (Some players experience that he usually only bets 1)
 * Cliff
 * No-Bark Noonan
 * Dale Barton
 * Lacey - Mojave Outpost Barracks/bartender
 * Private Jake Erwin - NCR Embassy
 * Ambassasdor Dennis Crocker - NCR Embassy

Behind the scenes
The achievement name "Know When to Fold Them" is an homage to the song "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers, specifically the well-known lines: "You got to know when to hold 'em Know when to fold 'em; Know when to walk away, Know when to run."