Goldrush

I've only played it a few times, mostly as Engineer on defense.  I got some really good KD ratios but ultimately felt that being an engy was useless as I really couldn't prevent the cart from being nudged forward.  I saw several points scored with the enemy using the cart as a shield from my sentry gun and that pretty much sucked.  Of course I did use the same tactic myself as a Pyro on offense!

Offensive engineer is really important to build teles and consolidate gained area. Teles get those HWs into combat as fast as possible! (of course I may be biased there...)

I think that defensive engineer along the route of the cart isn't very good while the cart is moving. However, when it's near the final checkpoint of every stage, sentries become more powerful, especially on the final checkpoint of the final stage - in games I've played, sentries here have (with one exception) locked down the entire game.

On defense I've found it difficult to keep the cart from being moved foward because there haven't been enough Engineers setting up teleporters. On the second and even more on the third legs of Goldrush the amount of time it takes to walk through the map can be a great disadvantage when the cart has a lot of BLU near it to move it forward.

There are a few good spots to place sentries, like the walkway between buildings of the last point of the second leg. Yesterday there were two sentries on the walkway, one to the right behind the cart exit on the upper platform, and one to the left of the exit on the ground. This setup kept our team from moving the cart forward for almost a full five minutes.

I had a lot of fun on all the gold rush games I played yesterday. A few observations:

1. Unlike a lot of other maps, gold rush seems to really emphasize working together as a team.

2. There are some very clever game mechanic situations that pop up. (Rocketing/nading people off the cart, etc.)

3. Offensively, if you focus on taking out the supporting guns / players first, it becomes much easier to move the cart. Really focus on breaking them up / scattering them while a couple of players are on the cart.

4. Offensively, if you have a couple people move ahead of the cart and cut off the opposition at entryways, etc., it makes a huge difference.

5. Turtling (so far) is not nearly as effective - I like that a lot.

6. It really helps if everyone reports on sentry placement, enemy movements.

7. Soldiers really shine on this map.

That's about it so far. Really enjoying this new map.

On another note, I hear alot of people think the Scout is useless on offense.  I have to disagree.  Of course, it depends on what you mean by useless I suppose.  If you mean you aren't Number One with the most points, I agree.

I think Scouts perform a very important task on offense, running ahead of the cart and messing with the defense and making them scatter.  Just taking them off the cart for 30 seconds is a HUGE boon to your team.

I played a little as Scout yesterday and it is a little tricky, but not that bad.  Defense is so busy looking at the cart it's so easy to flank them.  I went Sniper and Medic hunting and did fairly well.  My score might not have shown it, but I feel I was contributing quite a bit to the team as a whole.

On a side note, the map really is a Scout's playground.  There are so many things to jump on, and so many different paths to take, it really is quite fun.

I got to play the map for a few hours and I had a really really good time.  I'm not at the point where I can pick the map apart yet, but I do know I had a blast.

Well done, Valve.

yea, I really enjoyed playin scout on this map, but I dont think ill stand much of a chance once the medic population goes down

Playing with a particularly cowardly offense team I switched to Scout and it worked out rather well. I was using the cart as shield (since our medics don't seem to realize that you can heal other classes beside heavy) and occasionally peeking out and dodging to avoid sentry guns. The other team was too focused on combat classes as well to realize that the cart was moving closer.  Eventually I edged the cart past the choke point and gameplay resumed as normal.

Turtling at the very last checkpoint is still an issue- as far as I can tell there are only two routes (straight ahead and left side towards battlements). Sentries with some pyro protection could make this very easy for defense.

I'm not much use for this because, just like everyone I stuck to the medic most of the time.  But a few things i noticed was that the area directly around the cart generated the biggest fight.  A clever spy could use this to their advantage and circumnavigate the battle to get several backstabs working from back to front.  On defense this will prove invaluble to keeping the cart where it is.  On offense, this can be used to disable upcoming sentries and taking out defensive engies.  Also taking out the surpluss of medics might show the opposing team that you aren't going to back down even with this many medics running around with their fancy blutsaugers and kritskriegs and ubersaws.

P.S. this is my all time favorite map.  That honor used to be for 2fort, but Gold rush is way more fun and combat oriented.

Overall it's a good map, but I will note the one glaring flaw with it is that on several parts of the different stages it becomes a complete spam-fest. When you think about it; Goldrush is a new form of Dustbowl, but it's much more friendly for the attacking team, however like Dustbowl it can turn into a 20-minute deadlock on the back point quite easily.

So what's wrong with that.  I like a good fight.  Thats the only thing I don't like about TF2.  There is no classic deathmatch or even team deathmatch.  I mean I would play Half-Life 2 deathmatch if it didn't suck so badly.  Besides, a little shack up in game play is always good.