Caravan (game)

Caravan is a card game played by caravan guards and travelers in the Mojave Wasteland.
==Background==
Text below in monotype font is verbatim transcript from the Collector's Edition vault playing cards deck.
==Obtaining a deck and additional cards==
A free 54-card starter deck and game instructions can be received from Ringo in Goodsprings. This deck comprises 53 of the 54 cards from the the Tops' set, with two Kings of Diamonds. The King of Clubs is missing. Additional cards can be obtained from various merchants and corpses across the Mojave Wasteland, by beating Festus at Lucky Horseshoes, or by finding cards in the Sierra Madre.
==How to play==
===Bidding===
At the outset of the game, the opponent will place a bid. The player can then either match or raise. Non-player characters will not match every bid, only raising to about 50% of their initial bid. The player can bid any amount they want, limited only by their opponent's bid and the amount of money they have.
The NCR bills and Legion coins only show on the bid. The number is unseen.
===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. Any duplicate cards purchased by the player are automatically filtered out of the selection process.
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 select cards, creating a new caravan deck each time from all 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 time Caravan is played.
===Gameplay===
===Card values===
Card 	Played against	Effect
Ace 	- 	
Number cards2-10	- 	
Jack 	Ace2-10 	
Queen 	Ace2-10 	
King 	Ace2-10 	
Joker 	Ace2-10 	
* When played against Ace: 
* When played against number card (2-10): 
* Multiple Jokers may be played on the same card.
===Winning===
==Caravan players==
Name 	Location 	Common bids 	Merchant 	Game Limit
Cliff Briscoe 	Dino Bite gift shop 	See below 	Yes 	5 Games
Dale Barton 	The Fort 	See below 	Yes 	None
Amb. Dennis Crocker	NCR Embassy 	Holds 2000 caps 	No 	None
Isaac 	Gun Runners 	Holds 200-227 caps	No 	None
Private Jake Erwin 	NCR Embassy 	Holds 200-209 caps	No 	None
Johnson Nash 	Primm 	See below 	Yes 	5 Games
Jules 	North Vegas Square 	Holds 0-20 caps 	No 	None
Keith 	Aerotech suite 200 	0 	No 	None
Lacey 	Mojave Outpost 	See below 	Yes 	5 Games
Little Buster 	Camp McCarran 	Holds 300-390 caps	No 	None
Quartermaster Mayes	Camp Forlorn Hope 	See below 	Restricted	5 Games
No-bark Noonan 	Novac 	Holds 2000 caps 	No 	None
Ringo 	Goodsprings/Crimson Caravan Camp 	Holds 200-230 caps	No 	None
Jed Masterson 	Northern passage/Southern passage	Holds 200-300 caps	No 	None
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==Notes==
* Planting any currency (caps, NCR dollars or Legion coin) into an opponent's inventory increases the amount of currency they will spend while playing Caravan.
* The Caravan Deck can only be received from Ringo, either through dialogue options via the unmarked quest Ringo's Caravan Rules or by killing him and looting it from his body.
* 6 names can be seen carved into the table where all Caravan games are played (one for each "Caravan" spot), each of which is a location (Boneyard, Redding, Shady Sands, Dayglow, New Reno, and The Hub).
* Merchants (if anted properly) can place as much as 81.5% of their available currency on a particular hand of Caravan. This can be done by buying out their inventory, or just an expensive item, until they have a large cap amount, then matching and raising their bet to win it all back. This can only be repeated 5 times per merchant.
* The easiest way to win is to find as many 6s, 8s, 10s, and Kings as possible. Then build a deck with just 6s, 8s, 10s, and Kings (or as much as you can but keep the deck to 30 cards). Play combinations of 10-6 and 10-8 into piles. Play King on the 10 in a 10-6 or on the 8 in a 10-8, discard if you don't have what you need.
* Another reliable deck uses mainly 7s, 9s, and 10s, and fills in any missing cards with Jacks, Queens and Kings. Any combination of 7, 9 and 10 will equal 26, the highest value a caravan can have, and the face cards can be used to disrupt an opponent's lane. If for any reason it's not possible to create a lane with 7, 9 and 10, a King placed on a 7 can be used to push the value of a lane for a winning value.
** Johnson Nash often uses face cards on the player, which may make the strategy useless.
* For traders with a 5-game limit, cancelling a game (either by forfeiting the game or exiting on the betting screen) counts toward the limit.
==Behind the scenes==
* The achievement/trophy names Know When to Hold Them and Know When to Fold Them (in game challenge) are references to the song "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers.
* Both Klamath Bob and Melissa Lewis were at one point intended to be Caravan players. Their Caravan decks are in the game's resources, but the dialogue options do not exist. Additionally, Poindexter appears to have been intended to be a Caravan player. In this case the dialogue option is present, but the associated dialogue script, caravan deck, and necessary faction assignment are missing.
* Regarding the development of Caravan, Joshua Sawyer stated that the team wanted more testing and iteration on the game, but there were too many more important issues to fix, making Caravan a lower priority that they never got around to. In terms of those improvements, Sawyer would have wanted better tutorialization for Caravan, to simplify the deck, and to eliminate the "meta" of loading everything up with sixes, tens, and kings.Fallout: New Vegas 10th Anniversary Charity Stream (reference starts at 3:20:09)Joshua Sawyer: "Yeah, I mean, we had wanted to do more testing and iteration on it, we just didn't have time, there were too many other like, critical bugs to fix, so we just never got around to it. I think it should be tutorialized easier, I think that the deck should be simplified a little bit in terms of what the player gets from the beginning... um, I do think figuring out some way to move away from the 6-10... y'know, just load everything up with sixes and tens and kings."
==Bugs==
* Playing with any no-game-limit non-player character when they hold 59804 caps will result in the player winning up to 52029 caps. Dale Barton will fall back to 59804. This action is repeatable. Also, the game may crash when the non-player character holds more than 65,535 ((2^16)-1) caps in their inventory.
* Though the rules state no discarding may occur during the initial round, it is nonetheless possible to do so anyway. If the player does so, their opponent does not get a turn and the player gets to go again. The non-player character will also use this bug to their advantage. This is likely due to the fact that if you started with (for example) all queens, you could not make a move and the game could not progress.
* 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, while party chat still works.
** The button to continue will sometimes lag over. (Pressing (O) to exit will sometimes cause the Pip-Boy to open and pressing (X) will sometimes trigger dialogue with the opposing player).
* It is not possible for the player to discard cards once their main deck is empty. The opponent will still be able to do so once their deck is gone.
* When putting a card onto any pile, the green validation card will show upside down
* A bug may occur where the non-player character will not bid any caps even if the player wagers caps. If this happens, the player may lose their wager if they lose and won't win anything if they 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 the player looking at their 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.
* Once the game starts and the non-player character places their first card for their caravan, you're not able to select any cards to be placed in your caravans
* There is a possibility that the trophy/achievement "Caravan Master" will not be awarded despite reaching the 30 wins required to get the trophy.
* When playing Caravan, the game may end abruptly even when the win conditions are not met. Either the player or non-player character can win. 
* When playing Caravan, if you remove an opponent's card, lowering their score below 21, the game can still end as if the column is still sold prior to enough cards being re-added. This is a bug, as this does not happen when a column is removed to try and restart it, nor is the column value noted anywhere. 
* Even though the rules state that a deck "cannot have duplicate cards from the same set", it is possible to make a deck with both Kings of Diamonds from the initial Caravan deck given by Ringo.
==Gallery==
Nv caravan-table02.png|Texture file
Caravancoins d.png|Texture file
==See also==
* Caravan card
* Caravan deck
==References==
Category:Fallout: New Vegas gambling
de:Karawane (Spiel)
es:Caravana (juego)
it:Caravan, il gioco
pl:Karawana (gra)
ru:Караван
zh:Caravan (game)