I'm sorry, try as I might I'm not understanding how this game works, it seems to make the rules up as it goes along. I understand I'm meant to make a stack of between 21-26 but sometimes when I put down a face card either the number doesn't count (e.g 7+q=7) or it forces me to lose the caravan I have been building (e.g 7+q=0) so how am I meant to know which is which because half the time the face card is my only playable forcing me to lose a stack.

Anyone know how to make heads or tails of this?

Edit: Also, what's the deal with the game randomly adding cards to my stack?! I had a stack at 26 and then randomly out of nowhere 2 cards joined that stack making it 44

Face cards - Jack removes a card, Queen is just to change the suit, and King adds a certain amount although I never did figure out the exact math on what it was on which cards.

If your stack was raised like you said, the computer player probably played a King on one of the cards in your stack - annoying but you can do the same to them. If your card disappears the computer probably played a Jack on it, which they randomly like to do on fresh piles.

Also instead of the removing your entire stack after they play a King on it and fuck everything up, you can put a Jack on the King to remove it and save the pile.

I figured out that the King raises the stack by the amount of the card it was placed next to 

Thanks for your help.