Caravan (game)

Caravan is a card game designed by Obsidian Entertainment specifically for Fallout: New Vegas. While traveling throughout the Mojave Wasteland, you will encounter characters who will be available to play a game of Caravan. Ringo in Goodsprings will give the Courier a basic deck and the rulebook. A Caravan deck must consist of at least 30 cards, chosen by the player before starting the game. If the player does not have the correct amount, any attempt to play will result in a message informing them of this fact.

Obtaining a deck and additional cards
A free 54 card starter deck and game instructions can be received from Ringo in Goodsprings. This deck is composed of all 54 cards from the The Tops' set. Additional cards can be obtained from various merchants and corpses across the Mojave wasteland, or by beating Festus at Lucky Horseshoes.

Bidding
Prior to the actual game, your opponent will place a bid. The player can then either match or raise the bid. NPCs will not match every bid, only raising to about 50% of their initial bid. It is possible to bid more than your opponent will, but not vice versa.

Building a deck
Caravan decks are composed of at least 30 cards from one or more traditional playing card sets. The deck may have any number of cards of any type, although it cannot have duplicate cards from the same set. For example, a King of Spades with The Tops on the reverse and a King of Spades with Gomorrah on the reverse is acceptable, but more than one King of Spades from The Tops deck would be illegal. Any duplicate cards purchased by the player are automatically filtered out of the selection process.

Building a custom deck
Prior to beginning the game, the player is presented with the "deck creation interface". This interface consists of two rows of cards, both representing every card in the deck. The visible cards in the top row represent the playable deck, while the bottom row are the unused cards.

A deck is created by moving cards from the bottom row to the top row using the Add button. Cards can also be removed using the Remove button. The "Randomize Deck" button will randomly change the visible cards in the top and bottom rows, creating a new caravan deck for you each time from the available cards in your total card pool. Once the player is finished creating their deck, they can move on to the game. The finished deck will be saved and cannot be edited until the next hand of Caravan is played.

Rules
Caravan is played with two players building three opposing caravans (or "bids") of numbered cards. The goal is to outbid the opponent 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 of their caravans. A player may not discard during this initial round. (This is currently bugged, see Bugs.) Once both players have started their three bids, each player may do one of the following on their turn:
 * 1) Play one card and draw a new card from their deck into their hand.
 * 2) Discard one card from their hand and draw a new card from their deck.
 * 3) Disband one of their three caravans by removing all cards from that caravan.

After the initial card is played, the following card determines the direction of the caravan, either ascending or descending numerically. All subsequent cards must continue that numerical direction and/or match the suit of the previous card. Playing a same-suit card will change the direction of the caravan, if applicable. Cards of the same numerical value cannot be played in sequence, regardless of suit. Face cards and Jokers can be attached to an Ace or numeric card in a caravan (including your opponents') and affect them in various ways.

Card values
Effects change based on whether it's an Ace or a number card (see below). They have no effect on face cards. Multiple Jokers may be played on the same card. Jokers played on Aces remove all non-face cards of the Ace's suit from the table. A Joker played on an Ace of Spades, for example, removes the 2 through the 10 of Spades. This has no effect on cards whose suit has been changed by a Queen, nor on any cards played after the Joker. Jokers played on these cards remove all other cards of this value from the table. For example, a Joker played on a 4 of Hearts removes all 4s (other than the card the Joker is played upon) from the table. This only affects cards played before the Joker. Removes that card from the table, along with any face cards (Jokers, Queens, or Kings) attached to it. Changes the suit of the card it's played on and reverses the direction of the caravan if played on the lead card. For example, playing a Queen of Hearts on the lead card in a 5, 7, 9 caravan will change the 9 to Hearts and make the direction descending. Multiple Queens may be played on the same card. Doubles the value of the number card it's played on. A King played on a 4 adds 4 to that caravan. Multiple Kings may be played on the same card for multiplicative effects; thus, a second King will re-double the value resulting from the first King, so 4 x 2 = 8 then 8 x 2 = 16.
 * Ace: Value of 1.
 * Numbered Cards (2-10): Listed value.
 * Joker: Played against Ace; 2-10.
 * Ace:
 * Numbered Cards (2-10):
 * Jack: Played against Ace; 2-10.
 * Queen: Played against Ace; 2-10.
 * King: Played against Ace; 2-10.

Winning
A player's caravan is considered sold when the value of its cards is over 20 and under 27. The opponent may still outbid by increasing the value of their opposing pile while staying within the 21-26 range. The game ends when each of the competing caravans is sold to either the opponent or the player. In the event of a tie between any two matched caravans, the game continues until one side has a better bid. The player with two or more sales on their side at the end of the game wins the pot. If either player runs out of cards to discard before a winning condition is met, the player will not be able to discard and will be declared the loser regardless of how many winning caravans they have.

Tips
While building a specific deck is not necessary, it will definitely help your odds of success. Since like-suit cards may be played on each other regardless of a stack's direction, if a player can build a deck of one or two suits of cards, they will have a strong advantage. This will also allow a player to have a strong ratio of face cards, as they can be played indiscriminately of suit. Also, by building a deck that is centered on one or two suits, queens become fairly useless, leaving the more powerful jacks and kings to have a higher frequency of play.

Caravan players

 * [1] Merchants who play Caravan will use one quarter of their currency as starting bid. Spending caps with them increases the amount they hold and the amount they bet, and vice versa.
 * [2] Certain merchants have a limit on the total number of times they will play Caravan against the player. This limit is absolute and does not "reset" at any point during the game.

Behind the scenes

 * The achievement/trophy name Know When to Fold Them is a reference to the song The Gambler by Kenny Rogers.
 * Both Klamath Bob and Melissa Lewis were at one point intended to be Caravan players. The dialog options which would allow this have been completely removed in both cases, but their Caravan decks remain in the game's resources. Additionally, Poindexter appears to have been intended to be a Caravan player. In this case the dialog option remains, but the associated dialog script, caravan deck, and necessary faction assignment are not present.

Bugs

 * Playing with any no-game-limit NPC when he holds 59804 caps will result in you winning up to 52029 caps and Dale Barton will fall back to 59804. This action is repeatable. Also, the game may crash when the NPC holds more than 65,537 (2^16+1) caps into his inventory.
 * Though the rules state no discarding may occur during the initial round, it is nonetheless possible to do so anyway. If you do, your opponent does not get a turn and you get to go again. The NPC will also use this bug to their advantage.
 * After the game ends:
 * when it says to press any button to continue pressing start and then hitting start again will cause the game to become unresponsive yet party chat still works.
 * the button you hit to continue will sometimes lag over. (Pressing (O) to exit will sometimes cause the Pip-boy to open and pressing (X) will sometimes cause you to talk to the person you just finished playing with).
 * Confirmed on unpatched Xbox version of the game, only encountered at Crimson Caravan merchant as well as Cliff Briscoe.
 * It is not possible to discard cards from your hand once your main deck is empty. Your opponent will still be able to do so once their deck is gone.
 * Upon winning, the player gets the amount of caps in the pot added to their cap total, though the in game message only reports adding half the pot. This is only when the player wins, if the NPC wins the caps are removed and added properly from both.
 * When putting a card onto any pile, the green validation card will show upside down
 * A bug may occur where the NPC will not bid any caps even if you wager caps. If this happens, you may lose your wager if you lose and won't win anything if you win.
 * Some caravan card games may not load up a screen, but rather load up the options to choose cards. The screen will remain with you looking at your opponent.
 * When drawing or discarding, some cards may change to a different card (ex. 7 to a 10) for the duration of the animation and then change back.