Either I still didn't get the rules of Caravan even after reading the detailed explanation on the fallout wiki or it is a bug, please tell me.

So I got a heart of Ace as the first card of a deck and I wanna play a 2 of Spades on it. From how I understood the rules this should be possible, but it's not - why?

Another example: The first card of the deck is a 6 of Clubs and I wanna play a 7 of Spades or a 5 of Hearts on it to make the deck either ascending or descending - but I cannot.

Why? What did I not get, or is this a bug? :unsure:

Thanks for any help in advance.

what does it matter how to play (it seems pretty confusing)? You can barely make out what's on the cards they're so small anyways. My TV is 27 inches and I still can't see the card.

???

Then you should get new glasses, honestly. They are big and you can see them very well, at least in my game.

Sounds to me like your Caravan is bugged. Either that or you're trying to add cards to a caravan before having placed all 3 initial cards for each caravan.

In caravan, you can add any number card to another number card, aslong as it's either of the same suit or following the patch (rise/fall) of the caravan.

If you put the 2 below the Ace, not next to it, using the down arrow key on pc, the card should turn from red to green, if not you are indeed bugged.

i gave up on caravan, considering just looting enemy corpses is far more profitible and enjoyable. not to mention more straightforward.

I think your problem is you try to use wasd to navigate not the arrow keys (I had the same problem).

2 things: Either you haven't put the first three cards down yet, or you are putting the card to the "side" instead of below it.

Question for the masses:

Has the computer ever played a Jack, Queen, etc on YOUR side of the table to screw you up? I havent seen one do it to me yet. I love dropping Jacks on the computer to kill their caravans.

Nope, Even though I don't completely understand the rules (I don't know exactly when and why a game ends for example) I still win more than I lose because the AI seems as confused as I am.

Have never seen the computer do this. Hence my 25,000+ caps in winnings. I don't even play it anymore. It's broken. I had a foolproof deck and system and was winning 100% of my games because the computer will not use a face card against you. I thought is broken even then but yesterday someone pointed out to me that I was making it even more complicated than need be. I didn't realize you could keep discarding in the beginning without the opponent playing his cards. Now the game is just stupid. There's no way you can lose.

Yeah, haha you just keep discarding until you have 10's, 9's and 7's. LOL

Exactly. Ks, 10s & 6s work too. It's idiotic. I'm kind of shocked they overlooked this when making the game.

Yep , the unrestricted discards in the opening rounds as well as the flexibility you have in deck building (duplicate Value/Suit cards allowed if they come from a different deck!) makes the game so loose its impossible to lose. If the AI was more aggressive with face cards it would be a tiny bit more interesting since you'd have ot keep more Jacks around for putting out fires - but it would still be a cakewalk.

It's a decent game if both players were limited to playing with just one deck of cards. Fairly original, decent fun. However, as people have said there are 2 things that make it nothing but a cap factory:

1) You can have multiple of the same card so having a huge pile of the perfect 3 cards is easy
2) The NPCs will not use face cards against you


Also, the fact that it never tells you "USE THE UP AND DOWN ARROWS PLEASE AND THANK YOU" is probably turning 85% of people away from the game instantly.

If it wasn't for the unrestricted opening discards I'd still play the game. At least there's still some strategy applied if you couldn't do that. It's still 100% winnable because the computer won't use face cards against you but the unlimited discards ruined it for me.

If looting corpses is more profitable, then you're just not playing Caravan right. If you know how to play the game you really can't lose, and combine that with shopkeepers who play, and you can completely clean them out. As far as the enjoyable part, that's a personal opinion.

1) This wouldn't be a big issue if 2) actually happened I don't think.

The biggest thing that makes it a cap factory is that you can discard until you have the perfect hand while the NPC just sits there and watches you.

I'd maybe raise the minimum card limit to 32 and only allow the player to discard in the opening rounds if he had no playable cards in his hand.

I constantly see most caravan opponents destroy their own caravans with jacks. It's kind of hilarious.

I don't mind the 30 minimum personally but your other suggestion is dead on.

If you had to play correctly you wouldn't even run into that problem very often either because having so many face cards that you end up not having cards to play in the opening wouldn't be a winning strategy anyway.

It needs tweaked... setting a "minimum and maximum" number of possible cards would be one help. I like the idea that a discard should always end the turn, even during the opening phase when you need to place (3) numeric cards. The AI needs to be taught to use face cards against the opponent as well.

(I suspect this will only be fixed with mods, especially the AI play style.)

There are also a few videos on youtube now explaining the game. It wasn't until my 2nd or 3rd attempt that it finally started to make sense. And teasing apart a game as I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayb48b-4L5g made a lot of things much clearer.

Thanks, I just didn't know I had to push the arrow down key to play the cards. Maybe should have been explained somewhere.

This, according to the rules, is what is supposed to happen. It also says you can't discard until you have one card in each caravan. Clearly you can so it's a bug.