Golden Trail

Golden Trail is a quest in Fallout 2.

Quick walkthrough

 * Find a caravan driver (Ben Wade, Enrico Savinelli, Stanwell) in Redding or any of the three destinations (Vault City, New Reno, NCR) and enlist with a caravan.
 * Protect the caravan on the way to its destination.
 * Profit.

Detailed walkthrough
Mined in Redding, gold is a commodity sought by the three major powers in the wasteland: Vault City, New Reno and the NCR. Caravans carrying it (and goods traded for it) are a common sight in the wasteland, as are the heavily armed escorts accompanying them. This quest allows the player to participate in such a caravan route. Here's the rundown:

During each caravan run, the player will face up to four random encounters. When the map loads, all the hostiles are counted and with each kill on a hostile critter or non-player character, the counter goes down by one. Once it reaches zero, the caravan leader gives the all clear signal and the player can leave the map via the exit grid to go on with the caravan. Leaving the map before all the hostiles are dead will result in abandoning the caravan and the caravan driver refusing to do any further business with the player. If the caravan leader gets killed in an encounter, the route is effectively dead.

Sounds simple enough, but a few things complicate the matter:
 * To leave the map *all* critters and non-player characters marked as hostile need to be dead, even those that normally don't initiate combat (such as New Reno mobsters).
 * However, e.g. Den slaves do not raise the hostiles counter when created, yet decrease it when killed. Since the caravan guards favor a "kill them all and let God sort them out" approach, this can cause the counter to go below zero and cause the caravan to bug out - the leader will never give the all clear.

At any rate, arriving at the destination will result in a success on the caravan and payout, with each killed brahmin impacting the wages, which can go as low as 500$ (and a ban from caravan running). Flawless performance will net a 500$ bonus.

If the leader dies, a stand-in will appear at the destination to dole out the player wages. However, the caravan route will be considered dead for future employment.