Talk:Caravan (game)/Archive 1

it doesn't seem possible to actually add purchased cards from your inventory to the deck.

if it is possible can someone please elaborate on the process in wiki? I'm sick of just using "tops" cards

Adding cards.
This is not an official patch therefore not a fix, but a mod. (Bugfix)
 * This was fixed for Steam versions on 10/22

Can someone elaborate on how to add cards to your deck, I have loads of cards but cant seem to add them (xbox 360). Ouroboros Omega 16:17, October 23, 2010 (UTC)

I was having that problem too, on the xbox 360. The workaround I found on accident was this: put everything in your inventory into a box (everything, even the stuff you're wearing). When empty, add the cards one at a time to your inventory from the box. They should get added, then disappear. They should then be in the caravan deck when you go play caravan. A pain in the butt if you carry a bunch of stuff and have no house, but it seems to work every time. -- neverburnaclown


 * Thanks, I'll give this a try tonight. I think the patch they released in week 1 might have fixed the issue? My roommate had no problem having new cards adding themselves to his deck automatically. It was only my character whom I started *before* the patch who had the problem. (Although, I think he might have not played Caravan when first given the choice, and he later looted the corpse of whats-his-face in Goodsprings, so maybe that had something to do with it.) -- Ductyl 98.117.116.123

Caravan is broken really
It should be mentioned that it is incredibly easy to game the system in Caravan. A deck of only 10s, 6s, and Ks unfailingly wins every time. You end up with two 26s in a minute, literally. If your opponent has one too you drop a king on one of his cards and you win. If you do this to a shop owner you can take everything they have easily. You beat them for all their caps, buy everything in their store that you want with said caps, then win your money back moments later and still have everything in their store. The game is broken (aside from obvious problem of getting new cards in your deck that you buy).


 * It isn't exactly broken. You have to have 30 cards in your deck to play.  If you have managed to find 30 playable 10s, 6s, and Ks, you should win, because Caravan is meant to be a collectors' game.  I say "playable" because if you have two 10s of spades, both from Gomorrah, you can only play one, so having two isn't really helping you.


 * I'm level 21. I buy and grab every card I can find, because it's mildly interesting to do so; so I have a large number of cards. (I'm a collector of things in these Oblivion-style games.) I have enough playable 10s, 6s, and Ks to make the game a lot easier, but I found I had to pad my deck with some 3s (which are also very helpful, since 3 is half 6 and can be kinged), 9s (because they're close enough to 10), and even some Qs I brought just to discard them when they came up.  My deck's OK, I usually win.


 * What the AI needs is some help being cutthroat. It never seems to 'attack' the player, maybe I'm too early on.  But it uses Ks to boost its own caravan's scores, but it never seems to remember that one K can turn a winning caravan into trash.  Whereas I remember that all the time.  It doesn't seem to use jacks or jokers. 70.100.85.15 14:41, October 27, 2010 (UTC)

Actually, you're right. They messed up in programming the game; in the rules given to you buy Ringo, it says that you're not supposed to be able to discard during the initial card placements. Instead, you can do it as many times as you want. --L3377MA573R 18:56, October 31, 2010 (UTC)

Gameplay: Adding numbered cards
I was finding early on that I could put the initial numbered cards down, then the facecards would turn green on them, but I couldn't add any numbered cards onto any caravan, even if they fit within the rules. It wasn't until I watched a YouTube video that I finally figured out you have to press DOWN on the caravan to add a numbered card. This isn't covered very well in the rules.


 * Darn. That's it! You have to choose where to put the card even when there's only one place to put it! O_o And i thought it was totally bugged, but it's only an ergonomic faux pas. --unpaid lamer


 * Aye, absolutely nowhere apart from this page have I seen the 'use up/down keys to add card'. I was raging at mates that the game was broken, read this page and then (tragically) played till 4am raking in about 10K. I now love this game (deck loaded with 10s, 9s, 7s, Ks & 6s), although having to calm down the amount I play or else F:NV is too easy from a money point of view. You sir (unnamed OP of this section) are a hero. Monkoii 13:17, November 1, 2010 (UTC)

Bug or do I just not get it
When I play a game of caravan and get a card that has to be discarded, all I can do after that is continue to discard. It almost always happens on face cards. So far I have not been able to finish one game without loosing because I have to discard all cards. When I get a face card I usually always have to discard it and all following cards as well until I'm out of cards and lose. --Kilroy1975 13:54, October 27, 2010 (UTC)


 * Lots of people are playing this game successfully, brother; I'd say you are quite possibly just not getting it. I was unable to play until I read the "Caravan (game)" page itself on this wiki, then I was able to play.  What do you mean you "have to" discard all cards?  Do you mean that no other move will work?  It took me a while to realize I have to select cards from my hand with the arrow keys, then try to play them with W... -.-
 * Once I have discarded one card, it is the only funktion that works except exit. Pressing w does nothing. Select is out, only discard card and exit is highlighted until I run out of cards. It's not possible to select after first discarded card.
 * He is 'getting it'. The game is broken- I have this same bug. After playing a card or sometimes even just starting the game, the only option available is discard card until I have to discard all of my cards. 216.211.119.171 01:34, October 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * I thought I had this 'bug'. It is actually a failure to realize that the arrow keys are used to select cards. Nothing in the interface suggests that you should be using the arrow keys. If you don't touch an arrow key, the last card in your starting deck is selected, and your only option until the game starts is to discard this.

That I know. This issue arises sometime after the game starts. Most often after the first caravan is started or after the bottom card in my stack is a picture card or after I play a picture card. Then I cannot chose a card and the only options possible are to exit or keep discarding the last card in the deck no matter value until I lose because I am out of cards. --Kilroy1975 06:19, October 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * I am having the same problem. I tried using my own deck and randomizing the deck, either way, I put down one card and most of the time I can't put down the next card. Sometimes I luckily get 2 cards down to start the caravan, but it seems as soon as I discard a face card (which I can't place down even if I tried), all the options revert to discard. I went through decks and decks, and after the first or 2nd caravan pile, I could never obtain the option to place a card. I might try just using number cards, but I think the intent of the game was to use certain cards that included face cards...
 * So I made a deck of non-face cards, and it started to work, until the game went underway. I realize now, its the ARROW keys, that have done NOTHING to do for this game, is the way to get through the deck. I honestly consider WASD equal to the arrow keys, and both should be able to be used the same way, but apparently, this game sees them differently. Its upsetting that they don't specify this at all since most of us realize that WASD = the arrow keys.

Johnson Nash knows about the bugs.
In multiple games against him, i've seen him abuse the ability to discard before placing any cards to stack your hand. i didn't believe it at first, but he's done it multiple times, and he's the only NPC i've seen do it. Ravirai 06:24, October 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * I can corroborate that. He's done it to me quite a lot the slimey-little git. Came closest to losing against him. Too bad I kept dropping kings on his 26s. Muhwahwahwahwa! Monkoii 13:19, November 1, 2010 (UTC)


 * Interesting! I have noticed that he tends to hit 26s very often but didn't put two and two together like you have. Good thing he doesn't know how to attack your own bids with Jacks or Kings! Although... If his AI is coded to use discards during the initial placement round, wouldn't that imply that it isn't truly a "bug" that we are allowed to discard during the initial placement round and that in fact the documented rules are incorrect? That said, it would be somewhat, um, "stupid" to design a game with such a hugely obvious weakness when it's already quite easy to beat the AI 100% consistently WITHOUT needing to discard during the opening round simply by using a strong probabilistic deck design and gameplay that capitalizes on the fastest paths to success. Shaktiboy 14:46, November 2, 2010 (UTC)

Sadly I think they may have 'broken' it to let Nash cheat (maybe others too), when you play him he says he gonna stomp you or something to that effect. His cheating in the setup phase would seem to be there to aid this. They may not have known they broke the player side as well, or maybe just hoped saying it couldn't be done would stop most folks. I could write endless speculation as to why it was broken, hopefully they will get it fixed.

Article bloat
The article is bloated. Too much subjectivity, too much strategy, too much advice. In most cases, such content, especially strategy, would simply be deleted from the article. However, this is a bit of a special case, since there is a lot of actual information scattered throughout the advice and opinion.

Folks who have been adding to the article, would y'all put some effort into trimming things into an objective account of the Caravan game? The article should be about half the size it is now, if not shorter. And, advice and strategy should be excluded in favor of facts and information. Thanks.--Gothemasticator 16:06, November 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * Understood and generally agreed, but i'll point out that in this case there is an absolutely objectively quantifiable "best" deck makeup and gameplay strategy based on statistical analysis and, frankly, a weak design underlying the game rules. There is no inductive logic or subjective opinion in the long section I added in the past few days about the "Highest probable win" strategy without exploits section. This is all absolute fact. What's more, it's somewhat complex facts, nuances, and relationships to understand and communicate without being somewhat wordy. It's fine if you anyone wants to move that particular strategy to a dedicated page of its own that is linked to from the main Caravan page, but I would be quite cross (lol) if someone just wholesale deleted that strategy, because again, it is not in any way based on subjective opinion. FWIW, I have a long history as a ranked M:TG player and a solid grasp of probability and statistical analysis especially as regards games that revolve around custom deck construction from large pools of available cards (which is required at competitive levels of M:TG play). I am 100% confident in the objective, verifiable truth of my analysis, assertions, and gameplay method. And on a different level, there are a lot of players who feel the need to exploit the current discard bug to have a decent chance of winning, simply because the game mechanics are complex enough to be difficult for some players to grasp without a clear explanation of successful versus weak strategies. Frankly, I added this strategy in the first place to give the honest players and those who prefer to roleplay and not cheat a way to feel confident about playing the game honestly, with the end goal of improving the quality of gameplay for them. If you remove this strategy, you take that away from the player base. This stuff was easy for me to figure out in all of about 15 minutes but only because I have a lot of experience with this type of gameplay mechanics. I remember how hard it was to wrap my head around the nuances and probabilities of deck construction and decision trees during gameplay when I was first starting out years ago in the M:TG world. And besides, my explanation is only one half of the equation: a player still has to absorb and grasp the points that I outline and apply them effectively.Shaktiboy 16:13, November 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * IMO if you want to shorten the article length, two actions are probably worthwhile: 1) Remove the completely redundant copy of the in-game rules for Caravan. They're pretty much useless to anyone who has the game. (They're also confusingly written and misleading--the "Clarifications" section here is much more valuable.) and 2) Remove the strategies that all rely essentially on exploiting the apparent bug that enables you to discard during the initial placement round. FWIW I don't personally find any nuisance in reading a wiki article that is long--that is what the TOC section at the top helps you navigate around, and it's why I chunked my long strategy into many nested sections. Trust me, nobody reads anything top to bottom any more; they just skim headings and jump into sections of likely interest. Shaktiboy 16:37, November 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * And if any admin-level person wants to weigh in here, I'm willing to move my strategy section under my own user page and keep only a link to it in some appropriate place in this article, but again, I think that's an admin-level call because the content is not subjective. Shaktiboy 16:38, November 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * Update--I've reviewed the "highest probable win" section and pruned out the only bit that I feel is subjective, and pasted it here in the Talk page in section 7 below. Shaktiboy 16:46, November 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * Couple things:
 * I am an admin.
 * I'm asking that you severely trim down the article length. You and a few others put a lot of work into it, so in an effort to be politic I'm asking y'all to do the trimming. But it needs trimming, including your optimal strategy section.
 * --Gothemasticator 18:09, November 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, y'all didn't show any inclination to do anything except add to the page. I have removed all the strategy. Shakitboy, while your strategy was all very reasonable and true, it remains strategy, with building a deck having a playing style in mind, valuing different hands and cards according to their strategic use, etc. And, strategy, even good strategy, is not something we include in articles here at The Vault. If you want to include your writings on your user pages, you can retrieve it from the article history.--Gothemasticator 21:02, November 2, 2010 (UTC)
 * LOL you cant even give somebody 24 houra to see, respond, and act on your demands? Some of usnwork for a living and have family life after work hours. I was going to move the content out this afternoon after work (only 2pm rifht now). I must say that the admin community here is rabidly, fanatically impatient overall.Shaktiboy 19:14, November 3, 2010 (UTC)

Notes about the "highest probable win" strategy
The deck construction and gameplay method described in the "highest probable win" section is very strong against smart human opponents, and it utterly steamrolls all of the AI opponents that the original author has played so far in all the locations along the path from Goodsprings through New Vegas. I have a 32/0 win/loss record at level 6 and have never exploited the discard bug in the initial placement round--I always play the exact opening hand that I draw. I stopped bothering to save game before engaging a new NPC long ago, and don't bother saving until after I've bled them dry with 3-5 consecutive games. At level 6 I was sitting on 14k caps even after buying expensive stuff like That Gun, etc., so I ran up to New Vegas and plopped in 3 different S.P.E.C.I.A.L implants. And all this was accomplished without yet having the "Perfect" deck described in the strategy, but instead using a less-than-perfect variant (also described in that section) that as of this timestamp still has only 4 Kings and a mixture of 10s, 8s, 6s, and still one 9 at this point. Did I mention that you don't need any exploits to consistently win with this deck and gameplay method? Win by the rules and feel good about earning those implants honestly! Shaktiboy 16:44, November 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * For anyone curious exactly what this strategy is/was before being removed by admins here, the statistically strongest deck is exactly 30 cards as follows: 6 Jacks, 6 Kings, 9 Tens, and 9 Eights. (You may substitute 9 Sixes in place of the Eights, or 9 Nines in place of the Tens. With proper play therre is no deck with a higher preobability of winning, and you can easily win versus all AI opponents 100% of the time WITHOUT CHEATING, by playing your initial hand completely by the rules. If you want detailed proof and detailed gameplay instructions, look at the page history for the last version that had my namestamp on it. Meanwhile, thank your friendly admin community for keeping this objectively verifiable information completely out of sight from the player community. Shaktiboy 21:25, November 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * There is one variation of this "highest probable win" deck that comprises 6 Jacks, 8 Kings, 8 Tens, and 8 Eights. This deck is very slightly more "risky" in that there's a slightly lower probability of drawing an "ideal" opening hand (at least 2 face cards plus at least 3 numbered cards), although the overall probability of drawing an ideal opening hand is still comfortably high. The advantage of this particular variant is that it can win the game significantly faster, overall, if you pull an ideal opening hand. The trick with this variant deck is to load as many 10s and 8s of the same suit as possible, which increases the number of ways you can achieve a "best possible bid" (BPB) of 26. How? Because you have not only the standard 10>8>K, 8>10>K, and 8>K>10 paths to a BPB, but also one additional paths 8any>10suit>8suit. More paths to BPB = higher probability to win the BPB race. A similar deck with 10s and 6s can also work the same way (10any>6suit>10suit). Shaktiboy 13:41, November 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * I use a simple 10 Tens, 10 Eights and 10 Kings setup. Keep a full house of numbers and 3 kings.  It's not failed me yet.  Eights could just as easily be swapped for Sixes.  I have found no place that a Jack would help me win but a King would not (becuase the AI doesn't attack my caravans). 96.3.131.71 21:34, November 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * From your description "keep a full house of numbers and 3 kings", it's obvious that you're exploiting the bug that lets you discard indefinitely in your opening hand to set up that perfect hand before the initial placement round ends. This works fine if you like to exploit and not play by the stated rules, and it will still work moderately well after Obsidian patches that bug. But ultimately you have only 7 bid destroyers with that set up versus 12 or 14 in the two decks above. Try playing about 20 honest games and see whether you think your deck is still the bees knees or not. Then try 20 games with either of the above two decks. You'll see. 74.193.71.162 00:13, November 5, 2010 (UTC)

The note in the "Winning" section
"The tech writer who wrote the official rules failed to make an important thing clear: there are only three caravans on the board. Your three piles on your side are your bids for each caravan, and likewise for your opponent. Six bids, three caravans. As soon as all three caravans are sold, the game ends. The player who has the highest bid on at least two of the caravans at game end wins the pot."

... I don't have the heart to take this out, because it slightly improves the clarity of the game for new players who are totally baffled by its mechanics, but it's just plain wrong. Seriously. Each player has three caravans, three on each side. How do I know? Because if you look at the scores, you can also take a moment to notice that there are little words by the scores. "The Hub" and "The Glow" and so on. These aren't names for bids, that's pretty much nonsensical. They're names for the three caravans on each side.


 * your logic is faulty here. Those labels could easily be the two destinations at both ends of a single caravan route, with the so-called "conceit" being that two traders make bets on who can successfully pack more gear onto the caravan in a trip from their starting destination to the other. Or any one of a number of possible such "conceits". The bottom line is simply ambiguousnoriginalmrules. Mine were more clear. Shaktiboy 21:36, November 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * I know you're mad because your really long strategy part got taken out, but my advice is to get over it, friend. 74.36.13.146 00:10, November 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * -- I say that as a guy who sympathizes with all the work you got removed. Even though I suspect you weren't being 100% polite by repeatedly putting my word "conceit" in scare quotes.  Anyway.  It doesn't really matter if your statements - which are unbacked - are more "clear." I mean, does it?  It shouldn't be in the article if you're not sure it's true.  And a statement that the creators of the game made an error, which you will helpfully correct - probably shouldn't be in the article if you're not actually at least twice that sure it's true.  Don't you think?  Am I wrong in some way here?
 * The quotes were meant only to emphasize your argument and conclusion on the basis of guessing at the theme or "conceit" behind the game. Your guess is one of many possible guesses, based merely on some labels on the game board. The simple fact is that the winning conditions of the game are NOT explained clearly because certain key words in the official rules are used ambiguously and inconsistently. Again, my explanation at least was 100% unambiguous and clear, and the "conceit" behind my explanation was as good as any other. Now, with your removal of my explanation, new players have no access to the clearest possible explanation of how to achieve a winning condition or recognize that the AI is about to beat them. If you had a problem with my explanation that the tech writer behind the official rules simply made some errors of ambiguity (easy enough for even good tech writers to do, depending on time constraints among other things), why not just remove that bit but leave the rest intact?  It's the urge to remove solid, useful, objective information from articles on this particular wiki that I take exception to, all in the name of a TLDR mentality. Wiki content should be inclusive, not exclusive. Trim overly wordy content down to something less wordy but still containing the essential objective info? That's a fine approach. Remove content altogether because somebody finds some portion of that content objectionable? That's throwing out the baby with the bath water and counterproductive for the overall community. Shaktiboy 13:30, November 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * Alright, then. Your guess - as you put it - was that there are only three caravans.  Since that was just a guess, it should be removed, and it was. Problem? 70.100.81.195 05:05, November 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, but it was NOT a guess. That statement about there "being only three caravans" is made EXACTLY in the official rules. The problem is that the official rules also make other statements that CONFLICT, so the entire result is AMBIGUOUS and CONFUSING. Don't believe me? Here are the exact rules: can you spot the ambiguities? BTW here's a protip: never, ever argue clarity and ambiguity with a technical writer, because we can spot it a mile away. The myriad threads on the various Fallout forums where new players still say they are confused by why the game "won" over them and they don't understand the winning condition further attests to the fact that the official rules are ambiguous and confusing, which is why I added that bit in the first place.12:47, November 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Official rules: "A player's caravan is considered sold when the value of his cards is over 20 and under 27. The other player may still outbid by increasing the value of their opposing pile while still staying within the 21 - 26 range. When each of the three competing caravans has sold, the game is over. In the event that one of the three cravan values are tied between players, the game continues until all three caravans have sold. The player with two or more sales wins the pot." Shaktiboy 12:47, November 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * And just to help you out if you can't spot the ambiguities, here's a literal interpretation of the official rules if I substitute the word "pile" for "caravan" as you insist is correct: "A player's pile is sold when the value is 21-26. The other player may still outbid your pile by increasing the value of their opposing pile while still staying in the 21-26 range. When EACH of the three competing piles (meaning all six piles) has been sold (meaning all six piles are between 21-26), the game is over. (At this point, hopefully you know that's a false statement, right?) In the event that two of the piles are tied between players, the game continues until all three piles are sold. (Huh? I thought all six piles had to be sold for the game to end?) The player with two or more sales wins the pot (but, but... In the first sentence it says that one of my piles is sold when the value is 21-26. So all I have to do is get two of my piles to 21-26 to win, right?) Shaktiboy 12:56, November 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * (less indent) OK, I was with you until this: "When EACH of the three competing piles (meaning all six piles) has been sold (meaning all six piles are between 21-26), the game is over." Why would "the three competing piles" mean all six piles? You've sold me on the fact that there's ambiguity, but really, I wasn't arguing that.  Of course they're ambiguous.  You proved it though.  You just haven't sold me on your specific interpretation, which is that there are only three caravans and the players bid on them.  I mean, they do use phrases like "A player's caravan is considered sold" - which would indicate that the caravan belongs to the player.  Right?  So if there are only three caravans, and the players are bidding for them, they wouldn't call them "the player's caravan." Again, you've sold me on the ambiguity, but the more I read the rules, the more I'm *sure* you're not right that it's intended to only be three caravans - to be honest. 70.100.81.195 18:13, November 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Heh, again with the scare quotes. I ought to improve my reading comprehension skills, I didn't even see you continuing to use them... unnecessarily... (if you aren't sure what the word means, don't use it; or better yet - look it up!) but I went back to read after I posted.  Anyway, good work.  You gonna post your detailed strategy on your blog thing? 70.100.81.195 05:07, November 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Anyway, a couple threads up you summarize, concisely, your 100% winning strategy deck. That's great.  Why don't you put it on your userpage in a better formatted form instead of being all pissed off?  Honestly.  Anyway, you'll sort of feel consternation at this, but I win 100% of the time (and easily) using a comparatively mediocre strategy posted by some other editor, which is, always use (and only use) 10s, 6s, and Ks.  I also use Js. :P 74.36.13.146 00:27, November 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * No consternation, because the AI is very weak and therefore weak strategies can still beat it honestly. I wrote up the "highest probability" stuff mainly for players who might try playing the game in the real world against smarter human opponents. I guarantee if you played me OTB with anything less than the two decks I list above, you'd lose far more often than you would win.
 * Fortunately, one only plays Caravan against NPCs in Fallout: New Vegas, so an extremely detailed strategy for winning it is not required. 70.100.81.195 05:05, November 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * ! I noticed that you said you played against humans, above. You really?  Played this game against humans?  How does that work - given that it's a collectors' game?  So if I showed up and had the perfect deck - your perfect deck - would you expect that all my cards were from different sets, like I couldn't use the exact same Bicycle card more than once?  I mean, I assume everyone would always bring the "perfect" deck, if they're seriously playing.  Which means that deck build is not a factor, since there's exactly one optimal one.  Right?  So it's reduced to luck of the draw? 70.100.81.195 06:10, November 5, 2010 (UTC)

Apparently the conceit is that there's some outside buyer who wants to buy three caravans, and each player makes his own caravans more attractive to "the buyer" while sniping at the other's caravans, making them less attractive. Yes? Anyway, this bit has been in the article since its early days, where it suddenly became a useful resource on how to actually win a game of Caravan, but it does need to go. 74.36.13.146 14:43, November 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * Search this page for the word "human" and you'll get 4 hits. In none of those hits do I say that I have actually played against humans in the real world. However, it would be easy enough to do simply by buying different decks of cards (with different backings) to simulate the 8 different decks available in the game. Not much point, really, given the weakness of the game design with only one clear winning strategy and no counters to it. However, if you *did* play against a human you'd have a much tougher fight than the AI would give you, and that's where the weakness of some of the other earlier strategies listed on this page come into play. There is one simple deck concept and playstyle that has a significantly higher probability of winning than any other deck concept if you are playing by the rules.Shaktiboy 12:47, November 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * You're talking about optimal strategy... for a game which has about as much depth as Go Fish... when in the PC game where the card game was invented, the AI doesn't even make the necessary (simple) countermoves to require an optimized deck in any way. In short, your very very long optimized strategy is about a fantasy scenario, a game of Caravan against a human opponent... are you really still upset that it was removed? 70.100.81.195 18:24, November 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * I took the part out. I just don't think it's needed now that the article has more clarity than ever, given the fact that it's also wrong information.  I hate to say it (given all the work that was removed) but gothematsicator's edits were very good, the article is less cluttered now. 74.36.13.146 15:07, November 3, 2010 (UTC)

Resetting Merchants
I noticed if you quit the game then start it again, the merchants money and inventories reset. This makes it easy to get more cards fast at lower levels, not to mention that you can play against Lacey ad nauseum and get heaps of cash.
 * I have not noticed this on PC. Just my two cents.  Actually, if anything I felt that merchants were taking way too long to reset, given that they had all kinds of caps I wished to relieve them of. I believe merchants are subject to the usual three-day spawn reset just like other Bethesda/Gamebryo engine games.  Someone with a clue could confirm this or refute it in about two seconds, though 70.100.81.195 06:13, November 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's what you do; Save right next to the merchant (in the same room), quit, then restart the game. You need to be close to them or it won't work. Just try it... It is kind of an exploit though and it'll probably get fixed in some patch. :) Dcruze 07:37, November 6, 2010 (UTC)

The 6,8,9,10,K strategy is very valid. I use five out of 6, 9 and 10 each then seven 8s and eight kings. Works every time, and I never need to discard in the first round. Dcruze 12:51, November 4, 2010 (UTC)