The Basics:

Dustbowl consists of three maps which are played in sequence, with the objective on each map to get a flag to a cap point. The blue team always attack and they have 25 minutes to complete all three maps. The red team must defend and prevent the blue team from capping (completing) all three maps.

At the start of the map, you'll get the usual screen where you can choose which team to play on (or to spectate). Just remember that the blue team always attacks, and the red team always defends, so choose accordingly.

At the start of each map, the blue attacking team are kept behind a grate so as to give the red defending team a chance to get into position and put some sentry guns up. You'll get messages at 60, 30 and 10 seconds telling you how long there is before the grate opens. When the countdown ends, you'll hear a klaxon going off and the grate will open to allow the blue team out. They now have to get their flag to the cappoint, and the red team must prevent them.

Once the blue team have managed to cap the flag, everyone respawns on the next map and the 60 second pre-grate-opening process starts again. There are three different maps in total to complete. If the blues manage to cap the last point, the game ends. Alternatively, the reds can prevent the blues from capping and then they'll win.

Just remember these points:

  • Blue team always attacks.
  • Red team always defends.
  • There are 3 maps to play over.
  • You have a total of 25 minutes to complete all 3 maps, but there are 1 minute delays at the start of each map, so the actual 'playing time' is 22 minutes.
  • The attackers win by capping all three maps in 25 minutes.
  • The defenders win by stopping the attackers from capping all three maps in 25 minutes.
  • When the flag is dropped, if no attackers touch it for 30 seconds it will return to their respawn.

One final point: The reds can stop the blues on any map. So they may hold them up for 25 minutes on the first map alone, in which case the game won't even progress to the second and third maps.

Scoring:

  • The blue team scores 30 points for capturing maps 1 and 2, and 50 points for map 3.
  • The red team scores 5 points per minute.

(The scoring is carefully worked out. Let's say the blue team cap the final map after 21 minutes and 59 seconds (remembering that the total playing time is 22 minutes). They will score 30+30+50 = 110 points. The red team have defended for 21 minutes (the 59 seconds doesn't matter since they need a full minute to get 5 points). That means their score is 21x5 = 105 points. So right up to the very last second the blue team can still win the map. If the timer ticks over to 23 minutes, the game will end with the red team having scored 22x5 = 110 points. The blue team will have failed to cap the last map and will be stuck down on 30+30 = 60 points).

Dustbowl history:

The map was released with the 1.5 patch and was the first assault-based map for TFC. The only other assault map released by Valve to date is Avanti, which is similar in that one side attacks and the other defends, but the whole game is played over a single map, with the cappoints spread along it. A lot of the class playing and general tips on this site can be applied to Avanti as well. Also, look out for other assault-based maps, such as Up A Creek (slightly more complicated and not ideally suited to public servers, but great with the right crowd), Cornfield (a valiant attempt, with the cornfield itself a highlight, but perhaps too open to abuse from rocket jumps) and also Maya and Villa.

But hey... why are we talking about these other maps. Dustbowl is TFC assault, the original and still the best. Let's find out how to get the best out of it, so onwards to the next section.

  

Content by TODave
Design by MeTa