You need to buy all of the cards off of every merchant who sells them. This way you have more options to customize and build your deck. Don't play until you have a decent deck and you will never lose. Test your deck by saving before playing a game of caravan. If you don't like the results then load and make a different deck until you are ready then you can play for keeps.

Try and use cards of the same suit, limit your deck to two suits.

Don't bother with queens or jacks, none of the opponents I have met were clever enough to need these cards to defeat.

The best strategy is to hit 26 too fast for them.

Use lots of kings of any suit. The more kings you have the lower the numbers you can use in your deck which makes you more 'accurate'.

Also kings are the best weapon cards. If your opponent is at twenty or so on one of their caravans then slap a king on their highest card and overburden them.

My deck is spades and usually is as follows:

Aces 2
Twos 2
Threes 3
Fours 3
Fives 2
Sixes 6
Sevens 0
Eights 0
Nines 0
Tens 5
Kings 7 (of various suits)

And I win without much effort and without relying on luck.

An alternative is the two suit deck I had before which was as follows:

Hearts:
Sixes 5
Tens 5
Kings 5

Spades:
Sixes 4
Tens 4
Kings 4

Jokers 3

This deck proved to be way to brutal for the computer players to handle and they would often draw a gun after the game and start shooting me. (JK).

Unfortunately, the Caravan AI is broken right now, to the point where it's possible to exploit it for easy and really cheap wins.



I like the concept of Caravan, though. I hope it will later be patched up, the AI improved, and/or the rules of the came changed slightly to make it more challenging.

I think customizing the deck is an exploit. I just hit random deck and take my chances. Which is just the way i perfer to play, to each thier own...

I do that to and still win every game.

An exploit is something that wasn't intended. Customizing the deck is supposed to be a part of Caravan strategy.

The problem is that AI opponents aren't playing anywhere near a human opponent's capacity. They aren't even at [censored] cockroach levels.

Caravan has got to be the best addition to the game by far. At first it is confusing to figure out but when you get started i think everyone finds that it is the best way to make money.

Caravan is like a drug - you have to force yourself not to exploit it. I like acetoolguy’s outlook - but

But if you are so inclined - I find a much simpler stratagy to win most every tme is to load your deck with 10’s, 8’s, and Kings. Add a sprinkling of Jacks and 6’s, and you can’t go wrong.

I agree 100%, i like your set-up very similar to my own, few minor differences.

my caravan deck consist of 3 of each numbered card and the face cards as; As many kings as possible, no queens and 2-4jacks.




Just tried this way it owns lol

The best thing to use are easy to 26 combos that's 10's 6's 8's 9's with kings, this gives you lots of ways to a winning hand ((10+K)+6, (8+K)+10, (9+k)+8 and 10+9/8+6 for 24/25 if your after a quick win or are not seeing any kings).

I want to love Caravan, but it is just too easy to take money from these people. They NEVER play face cards on my caravans NEVER. And that is the single most important strategy to playing this game. Forcing your opponent to bust or remove a single card is a powerful tactic. I always ruin the opponents caravans with a strategically placed King and/or Jack.

Caravan would be good if it wasn't so easy to build a killer deck, and if the AI was better at it.

All you need are tens, nines and sevens. Then go down from ten. The AI never tries to block your caravan, so it's incredibly easy money.

I agree, a little challenge would be nice. All the "special" rules for face cards, and your opponent never takes advantage. But a challenging AI for any gambling game is a huge undertaking; too much time spent on that may have detracted from the "meat" of the game. The gambling system in FNV is a temporary distraction, a little "spice".

But I have to reiterate. To heck with all the get this, with that suit, that with the same suit, prime numbers only - unless squared, this face card with that face card, for the perfect Caravan. Simply concentrate on 10's, 8's, King's, and a few Jacks and Sixes just for spice and you've got it made. Works about every time. With this deck, the only conundrum you face is how little to use it.

Hmmm, I know that the casino games are tied to your luck stat, and I wonder if your opponent's caravan skill tied to it as well. Anybody use luck as a dump stat, and still win a lot of caravan hands?

I agree that the AI isnt up to the task when playing caravan. Im using a deck with 10 kings, 10 nines and 10 eights and I win 90% of the games in the fastest way possible = 7th turn. My deck and many other common builds would be completely destroyed by an AI that would play kings, jacks and jokers on my caravans too instead of always just focusing on their own base.

Also it is almost as if the AI doesnt even see your caravans because I have seen countless times how they are currently losing 2 - 0 meaning that if they win the last unresolved caravan bid they will immediately lose and still they play that pile untill they selfdestruct. The game would be a lot more interesting if the AI would be more aggressive instead of always just focusing on its own piles and always losing unless you get a horrible streak of bad luck or you make a mistake.

Its almost like playing RTS game against someone turtling in their home base who never sends their units to attack, harass or scout anything and just passively waits for their inevitable loss.

Right now I concur that the problem is with the AI and I have seen several instances of where it made a move that was...baffling.

1. The opponent had a caravan of 26 and so did I yet the opponent put a Jack ontop of their caravan reducing it to 14. Know for a fact that Jack was meant for me and the computer put it ontop of theirs.

2. Had a pile about ready to hit 26 when the opponent put a king ontop of their deck putting them at 36. The king was meant for me to boost me to 28 putting me over the 26 max.

Hopefully it is a simple fix and the devs just need to put in:

if(player.caravan =>21 || <=26)&&(Handcount=k)
[
place.k(playercaravan#);
]

This way the AI will learn (bad word I know) to put that King ontop of the opponents (aka us the player's) caravan to mess with us. *Also just to note for some that don't know coding that up there is psuedo coding and wouldn't work worth a damn. It's just to hopefully illustrate the point of how to fix the coding.*

10s 6s, kings, jacks and jokers... Jacks seem pretty common, and as long as you have at least 3 10s and 6s, you can fill the rest of the deck with weapons... I feel like a mad terrorist, decimating every opponent i find with a near endless stream of jacks... Once my number cards show up in the hand, the game is over....

eh my caravan deck is broken, it only ever shows 54 cards and I know I have far more then that due to buying from merchants.

tbh, it's already easy enough to win with the deck supplied by Ringo...

You don't even need to add cards, just some patience and smart playing.
It's more enjoyable this way than to make "killer decks"... which I did do in the beginning mind you now I understand the game it's easy mode.
Hope they patch it so opponents sabotage your caravans instead of it being only me.

As has been said, the AI is broken. All you really need are 10s, Kings, and 6s. All other cards are a waste of time until the AI is fixed.

I have noticed that my characters with high luck tend to win at caravan more frequently (like 90-100% wins instead of 80-90% wins but it is so subtle I thought it was all in my head). But you could be right. I still havent seen the opponent do anything remotely cunning though even with a luck of one. =(