How to play Caravan (Quick & Dirty)

Okay so there's the Betting Stage, the Deck Building Stage and the actual Play Stage

First things first however. You might get the impression that Caravan is card game, I think it's more of a 1v1 deathmatch match to see how much you can cripple your opponent

There are number cards (Ace to 10) and special cards (Jack to Joker)

The betting stage is self-explanatory, either bet an equal or a higher amount than the character you're playing.

The Deck Building stage at first looks super confusing. It's your standard deck of cards. Ace to King You can get a starter deck from Ringo in Goodsprings. You need 30 cards in your Deck to play We'll discuss an optimal Deck in another section of this guide

In the play stage you'll be greeted with two sides each with different settlement names. Your side will be the one facing you and the your opponents will be opposite you.

The Goal. The goal of Caravan is to get all three settlements on your side to 25. Easier said than done. Why? Well lets move on to the next section

Caravan uses the standard deck values:

Ace (1)
2–10
Jack
Queen
King
Joker

The number cards behave exactly like you expect — they add their value to your stack. The real spice comes from the special cards:

Jack
Destroys a card on the field — yours or your opponent’s.
These are your surgical strikes. A well-timed Jack can save a caravan or ruin one in an instant.

Queen
Reverses the direction of a stack.
If your cards are descending (8 → 7 → 6) and you’re stuck, a Queen flips the order so you can go upward instead (8 → 9 → 10). Great for escaping dead ends, especially when dealing with Aces, since you can’t go lower than 1.

King
Doubles the value of the card it’s placed on.
Put a King on your 10, and suddenly that caravan is at 20 off one card. You can even place Kings on your opponent’s stack to push them over 26 and wreck their settlement.

Joker
The chaos card.
Jokers remove all cards of the same suit or the same value from a single caravan.
Brutal, unpredictable, and capable of wiping entire strategies off the map in one play.

As you can already imagine, these special cards lead to all sorts of strategies — and disasters. NPC opponents love spamming Jacks to destroy your carefully built stacks, and it’s common for an enemy to take apart everything you’ve built in one vengeful move.

Just remember:
You can play special cards on any valid card in play, including your opponent’s. Turning their caravans into flaming wrecks is half the fun.

Beyond the basics already covered, Caravan has a few quirks the game never properly explains — and the AI loves exploiting them.

One thing to know is that the computer will sometimes auto-win a match if your current play is terrible and your opponent already has a strong advantage.
For example, if they’ve already secured a 25-point caravan and are steadily building the other two while you’re fumbling your hand, the game may just go, “Yeah, that’s enough,” and hand them the victory.

Frustrating? Definitely.
But this mechanic can also work for you when you’re the one dominating the match.

Another thing players often miss:
26 is just as viable as 25.
The target range is 21–26, not just 21–25. Hitting 26 is perfectly fine and often easier with Kings involved.

You can also use your turn to discard a card from your hand instead of playing one.
This helps you get rid of useless cards or reshape your strategy mid-match.

If a caravan gets completely ruined — usually by an opponent stacking Kings on you to force an unwanted value — you can discard the entire caravan as your turn.
Your opponent can do this as well, so don’t get too attached to any stack until the match is locked in.

Caravan’s rules feel loose at first, but once you understand these little tricks, the flow of the game makes a lot more sense.

Here’s the simple, consistent approach I use to win Caravan matches with almost no effort.

I recommend building your deck with only number cards from 5 through 10, plus all your special cards (Jacks, Queens, Kings). I personally skip Jokers, but you can use them if you enjoy chaos.
Just don’t overload on special cards — too many of them will clog your hand. Honestly, the starter deck from Ringo is already one of the best setups you can use.

When the match begins, start with your lower-value cards.
Your opponent will often blow their Jacks early, and you don’t want to lose a 10 or a key setup piece to a random snipe.

Once the field feels safe, start building your real stacks:

• Drop 10s as foundations for each caravan.
• Build upward or downward depending on what you draw next.

If your opponent starts building a threatening stack, don’t let it grow:

• Use Jacks to kill their best cards.
• Use Kings on their caravans to push them above 26 and ruin their progress.
• Use Queens to break their sequence direction if they’re relying on a clean ascending/descending chain.

Play patiently until you reach 25 or 26 on your caravans.
Do that on two out of three stacks and you’ll win 90% of the time.

Why only 90%?
Because sometimes the AI does something bizarre or unfair just to keep you humble. When that happens, don’t be afraid to save-scum and try again. Caravan is part strategy, part patience, and part “Nope, not letting the game cheat me today.”

And that’s really all you need. By now you should have a solid idea of how Caravan works, and you’re probably already thinking up your own strategies — which is half the fun of the game.

A final piece of advice: don’t underestimate your opponent.
NPCs may not be geniuses, but they absolutely will use every Jack, Queen, and King they can to ruin your plans. Expect sabotage.

And if you’re wondering whether your Luck stat affects Caravan?
It doesn’t. Not even a little.
But you’ll still need plenty of luck anyway.

Good luck out there, and have fun bankrupting everyone in the Mojave.