Okay, it has come to my attention that the game of Caravan is still not understood very well by the community. I will try to explain how to play Caravan, what each card does, and give several starter deck tips to help earn the two Caravan achievements.


Starting the Game

You can have a minimum of 30 cards in your deck, but unless you have a certain strategy then put all the cards you have in your deck. You cannot put the same cards from each source deck in your hand, so you can't have two Tops 6 of Hearts, therefore the max cards per deck probably caps around the 230 mark. I may be wrong on that however.

Each player begins with three separate piles of cards which are called Caravans. You have to place one card labeled Ace-10 on each pile before playing any other cards. The point of the game is to add up a number of cards to reach anywhere from 21-26. If you have at least two caravans that fall within this range that are a higher value (or "outbidding") your opponents, you theoretically should win the game (more on that in a minute).
The number 26 is what I personally want all of my caravans to get to because the only thing somebody can do to outbid is to place a king on my caravan to bust it or place a jack to remove a card.
NOTE: Aces are always valued at one, so remember this always. Always.

To get your caravan to the 21-26 range, you have to place your three cards down, one on each pile. Unless you have a specific strategy, I would place the highest valued cards down first. You then need to decide whether you want your caravan to ascend by card value (numerically) or descend by card value. It doesn't have to be in straight numeric order, for example if your middle caravan starts with a 6 of hearts you can place a 9 of diamonds on it, or any card value of any suit that doesn't match the cards value.
From here you must follow the pattern. If you placed a higher card than your starting card, you must play a higher card than that to continue the caravan.
There are two exceptions to that rule.
1. The first is that you can place any card value no matter what numeric order if the cards you place match the card you put them on. You can put a 9 of hearts on a 6 of hearts then put a 3 of hearts on that. It is only when you place cards of a different suit than each other that the numeric rule must be followed.
2. The other rule is when you place a queen. More on that later.

Continued in next post (don't wanna overwhelm you guys).

Until then, please don't comment until I finish.

What you can do in a turn:

You can choose to perform several actions in one single turn before your opponent plays. These are:

1. Playing a new card and automatically draw one from your pile of cards.

2. Discard one card from your hand and automatically draw a new one.

3. Disband an entire caravan and all cards (only reccomended if your caravan is over 27). You do not recover these cards for that game, so they go away until the next round.

The cards:

Each card has a different effect on the game. They are explained here as follows.

Ace- Value of 1.

Cards 2-10- They have the listed value.

Jack- Removes the card it is placed on from play, as well as any face cards attached to it.
Useful if your opponent has a caravan that is a greater value than yours, and you want it knocked down to size.
You can also play Jacks on your own cards ( for example if your caravan is over burdened by 4 you can put a Jack on a 4 on that caravan to remove it, making your caravan the perfect weight.

Queens- when you place a Queen it reverses the order the cards must be played, for example if you have a 2 in play on a three and can't use a lower card or one of the same suit place a Queen down to switch the order to place a card higher than the card.
Definitely useful to your own caravan but marginally so when placed on an opponents, because if they have almost have a caravan and you place a Queen then you could mess up the next card they would've placed... Or give them a good opening to put a new one down.

Kings- Adds the value of the card it was placed on. For example, a king placed on a 6 makes the caravan's value 12. Multiple kings can be placed for multiplicative effects. You can then place another king on top of that king to add to that caravan's value, so 12+12=24 and a good-looking caravan. This only works if you put two kings in a row down.
If your opponent has a caravan going you can place your king on his card to add to that caravan's value, to put them over the limit and probably make them toss out the caravan.

Jokers- have different effects depending on the card it is placed on.

For Aces: removes all cards of that Aces suit from the table. Place a Joker on an Ace of Spades for example and it removes all spades from the table, except for the card it is placed on.

For cards 2-10: removes all cards of that value from the table, except the one it is placed on. If your opponent has lots of 4's, then put a joker on your 4, now your 4 is safe and all his are removed from table.

For any face cards: N/A, no effect so only place on Aces and 2-10.

Continued in next post. Do not comment until I give the word please!

Winning:

A player's caravan is considered sold when the value of cards is over 20 and under 27, however the other player may outbid your caravan by [placing a higher combination of cards than yours, so then you should outbid his in return while staying between 21 and 26, or use a Jack of King to remove or burden their caravan]. The game is over when each of the three competing caravans is sold. If one of your caravans is tied, then the game continues until the person with two or more higher sales wins.


Bugs:

I have learned a lot about Caravan but sometimes when all three of my caravans are a higher value they still don't occur as sold. I don't see how that is in the game but I figured it was a bug and not a game rule. If this happens to you please comment.


Who to play in Caravan:

Ringo.

Always.

He has only 30 cards so in longer games of he runs out of cage before you do and neither of you had won then you win by default.
He is the worst Caravan player in the game and it is easier to beat him than the other players.
Ringo is located in the Goodsprings Gas Station prior to the Side Quest "Ghost Town Gunfight/Run Goodsprings Run."
If you sided with the Goodsprings settlers then you can meet him later at the Crimson Caravan Company to play either in the Men's Barracks or out in the courtyard.

If you sided with the Powder Gangers and killed him try Johnsom Nash in Primm.

If you killed Nash try Ambassador Crocker in the NCR Embassy on the Strip.

If you killed him try Issac from the Gun Runners (he normally is tinkering on the Reloading Bench by the Vendertron).

If you killed him too, then scour the Wastes looking for people to play, and rethink your take on socialization.


Stress-relief:

Caravan is quite frankly a pain-in-the-ass. The achievement can take an hour or more of constant Caravan. To relieve the anger the opponent puts in you save after your current game and murder him in many satisfying ways, by reloading the save. When you are done, reload the save a final time and keep playing. Repeat as often as nessecary.

Good Luck! I will post the builds tomorrow on a new topic so people don't get overwhelmed (and me, because it is 2 a.m. and I am tired as hell). Happy Achievement Hunting!

-Gauss Rifle <3

EDIT: Please excuse me for any typos I am on my iPod touch posting right now.
And feel free to comment, R&R and ask questions.