QL CTF Guide

In my opinion, Ironworks is a map best suited for attackers. It’s fast pace and plenty of ways to enter and leave the enemy base make it ideal for every attacker. I mean, you can cap in 8s using no guns at all. Duh. The position layout for the map is base defender, home red defender, enemy red attacker and high attacker. Home red defender shouldn’t really spend most of his time deffing alongside base def, instead he should also push attack as much as he can, because on Ironworks pressure is the key to winning. What happens in pickups tho, is that either home red player is almost exclusively doing red cycles every 25s and playing as second def until it’s his red pickup time, or he attacks frequent and picks up his reds when he remembers to.

Defense
It is a map that generally requires a def to have good lg aim overall and good rl + rg to keep it comfortable. The def is responsible to get his ya and mega (35 sec timer here) and his armor shards without delaying them too much. He will also make sure that enemies coming from water side do not get out of water without getting damage, make sure that he is on top of flag when there is pressure in his base so enemy fc cannot do a fast exit.

While rotating from mega / ya pickups a def is responsible to rail mid from high entrance (gl spawn) as much as possible while quickly moving back to get his base items / check for anyone incoming without his knowledge.

Due to the spawn locations of lg and rg the def has to rely on his home ra guy to get supplied for weapons. Especially having no lg is a serious problem so much depends on his home ra doing his job. If done right, after fending off an attack the def can quickly pick up rg by going gl side. The ammo boxes for rg and lg in base are usually enough to keep up the movement rotation.

This map allows for enemy fc’s to exit base very fast with little chance to catch up to them from flag area, neither does it give a chance for a clean shot from behind to take him down before it’s too late (flag reaching enemy base side), therefore it is crucial to damage any incoming enemy sufficiently so that they cannot do the rj exits from flag. Usually proper teams will help def out when there is a stacked or pu guy incoming.

The def can be crucial here if he can help mid a lot, and will usually decide if his team caps by helping out from gl entrance during his team’s flag run. If the def receives info about enemies coming from the lg teleporter he will start spamming grenades into the water to soften anyone coming from ra and finishes them off with lg / rl. It is also possible to utilize gl to spam from high to low sg entrance. One last important spam option is to spam grenades from the gl spawn itself on top of mid pu. By bouncing it on the ground it is possible to fill the mid pu spawn with grenades, making it deadly to be there for any enemy.

Positional duties are to be on top of the flag area while enemy attackers are coming. The only exception to this is when the def’s team has the flag and he opts to help mid despite the possibility of incoming enemies.

Enemy red
Enemy item timings:
1st enemy red ~10s
1st enemy medkit ~07s

Run straight to jump pad off the initial spawn, go bridge and drop to enemy lg. Unless you get blocked by your teammates, you should be right on time to at least deny the shaft. Next step is kinda obvious, go through the portal, take re, deal damage on enemy’s red player and if you can do damage to enemy base def but don’t die with lg. By now you should have an accurate time on enemy red and approximate time on his medkit. The medkit time depends on if the red guy skipped it to go directly to red (via rocket jump or just by deciding to not stop on the ledge to pick it up), so it might be delayed. If he did take the medkit on his way to first red, you should be close enough at that point to hear the pickup. If you didn’t hear the pickup, on the next attack you make you should run to medkit (but not from lg) to see if it’s taken (it probably is), so you can narrow down the timespan on when the kit spawns. As one of the attackers, you’re also required to stick around for power up. You shouldn’t worry about losing the red timing because the enemy’s home red player will be there too. If you win the mid and take the power up, you will probably have a clean access to his next red as well. If it happens that you’re the guy that picked up regen, you should bring it back to your home red player and drop it, because he probably knows when his red and medkit spawn, and might even be stacked to start with.

When you’re lost on red timing, you can always correct it in a few ways, the worst one definitely being camping in the red box, waiting for it to spawn. Other than losing a lot of time (if you’re off time), it probably won’t get you the red pick up as well. If enemy’s red player kills you there, at least try to delay the respawn in hopes you get to see when the red is picked up. A better way on correcting your timing would be seeing when the red player goes in through teleport and assuming that he picked it up at that time (give or take a few seconds).

Don’t always attack from the same route (sewer). If you die soon after the red pickup, there’s really no reason for you to be there again until it’s time for a new red spawn. Basically, when there’s no red in play, attack from any free route (consult your team overlay to tell you where your teammates are attacking from). Also, cool stuff to do when you see the enemy’s red player go in through the portal is to camp it until you see him leave for his base. What you should do is quickly go in and do a ton of damage, you might even kill him. Even if you don’t kill him, you did enough to stop him from being stacked in his next attack.

Home red and high attack
On initial spawn go left, towards the rocket launcher, up the jump pad, pick the medkit (or not, depends if you think you might be late for red), and proceed to take the shaft, red and go to your base. Now, on this initial spawn it’s quite possible that you get blocked by your teammates and turn up late for the red. There’s two ways to try and cut corners. I think the best one is to pick up the rocket launcher and rocket jump off the sewer ledge to red armor. It might not get you the shaft or the medkit, but you’ll have red secured and chances are high that enemy coming to your red will most likely just pick the lg, ignore medkit and go straight for sewer which secures 2 out of the 3 items you’re supposed to get which is not bad and could be worse (like your enemy shafting you down, proceeding to take medkit and then taking the red as well). When you do get the lg, first thing you should do is drop it to your defender. Aside from keeping the red safe, it is probably the most important thing for a home red player to do.

Once you have all the items secured, you have some 20 seconds of free time. Don’t use that free time to camp in the base. Push with rest of your attackers, the best way to fend off enemies going to your red is by having their base constantly pressured. That way their home red player can’t focus on his red as well, and it opens up a time window when your enemy red player can dominate (or at least should dominate). When you’re getting low on hp or when you notice that your red time is up soon, fall back and do your cycle thing. I’d recommend you getting in your red box a few seconds before the actual spawn, there’s always a chance someone sneaked in so you can kill them before the red spawns.

As far as power ups go, the home red player is the one most likely to get fed with regens, seeing how he’s the only one certain to get some items (medkit + red). So once you get the regen, either fall back for item pickup, or if you timed your red so it spawns some seconds before the regen then you should have decent stack on yourself to push immediately. Whatever you do is fine, unless you die and don’t get the regen.

To finish it off with attackers, high attacker should run directly for the railgun off the spawn, fire a few shots to slow down the enemy attackers and drop the railgun back to the base def. Once that’s done, high attack isn’t a position where you pick up the rail and camp. You’re encouraged to sync with your enemy red player as often as you can and deal damage and put pressure on enemy base. Only item you should try to time as a high attacker is enemy megahealth.

Japanese Castles, known among the community as wcp1/cp1/p1, is probably the most balanced out map in Quake Live in terms of even gameplay. It is probably the only map even the significantly weaker teams can put up a good fight.

Defense
Japan is usually straightforward to def, yet hard to master. The main priority and focus of def is to hold the flag area (nicknamed “box” because of it’s shape) because of the shards / ya located there. It’s crucial to be there at nearly all times to be able to tell if flag is leaving high or low in case the enemy gets the flag.

The usual tactic is to have 2 box defs. They will share the shards / ya in the base and one of them (usually the one with lower stack) will move to home pu before it spawns and/or go to mid in case his team has grabbed the enemy flag. The def who went home pu must also pick up the power up in case none of the attackers show up and use it for attack while doing his best not to die and give the pu to enemy.

It is possible to play 1 box def and 1 high def. This is supposed to be more heavy attack oriented with heavy railing from the high defender at high entrance door, he will also be able to join attack faster from there. The risk of this strategy is that the high def has to know when to fall back pretty much before there is trouble in box. In case he does not make it in time it is possible that the enemy fc will make an easy exit. The safer strategy is always 2 box. The more risky, but more aggressive, 1 box 1 high strategy requires a high def with good rail and very good map awareness along with fast movement to be successful.

Japan is the most rewarding map for a def who likes to spam a lot. Both high and low entrances are highly susceptible to grenade and rocket spam. Grenades are usually underused by defs, but especially here they are amazing if the enemy attackers try to overwhelm the def by rushing. Always try to spam grenades or rockets when you receive info from your team about incoming enemies. As a box def, you will usually not hear the enemy before he drops down to shotgun or bottom stairs. With a little luck your spam will do at least some splash damage, or if you are really lucky even a direct hit to an enemy who is dropping down low from sg spawn or rushing from high stairs. I even recommend spamming random rockets up to high entrance windows just in case you get lucky against someone using high jump pad to go
in fast. In short, try to soften all incoming people with spam and then switch to rg to get a hit in, if they survive all this then switch back to rl / sg to finish them off in box.

If def dies it is usually crucial that he must not fight or even spend time taking weapons and must move back to base as quickly as possible. A common misconception is that when a def spawns enemy garden that it is ok if he joins the attack. This usually does not benefit the attack much and will also mean 2nd def is alone longer than he should have been.

Touted as the best map ever made for any iteration of Quake CTF, Spider Crossings (aka wcp/cp/p9) is probably the most played map in pickups and leagues (second only to Japan perhaps). A fan favourite that once it got in to QL kept dominating the scene as well as it had been doing during Q3.

Defense
An overall tricky map to def. The def has to pick up his mega every 2 mins and his ra every 1 min, he must do this without delaying them and while making sure his flag is not touched during item pickups. The def will also have to deal with attackers trying to steal his ra by waiting at high or waiting at low tunnel at mega.

The def player will ideally have to help mid by railing from low (default) or high base entrances while taking as little damage as possible. He will also have to keep his eyes open for any incoming enemies as either low or high entrances give full view and sound info about enemy movements. The key times to help mid are always at power up times and when your team has the flag so mid has to be cleared. It is possible to play this map without ever helping mid but because of the way ctf has evolved this is no longer advised as the pressure becomes too much on mid when enemy def helps mid.

Always check where your mid player is and move to mid according to that. If you see he is positioned high (team triangles work great) then move to mid from low and vice versa. Do peek rails to mid when you are in position but move back if it is too crowded, your stack is extremely valuable as your main resources have long spawn times and the only other armor is mid ya which is usually too hot to control properly.

Use gl whenever you are at your ra to spam low ya, you never know what you will hit. Also use this to spam to lower rl area if enemy is incoming low. Spam gl to mega tunnel before it spawns, as enemy attackers usually like to wait in there to try to steal it. Sometimes while waiting for ra to spawn def will receive info or hear enemy coming low and choose to stay and pickup ra, this is a good time to spawn gl from high rl or lg area so that your flag spot is full of grenades, the few seconds of time saved can be crucial while def picks up ra and clears his flag area. The last spam tip is to spam mid pu with grenades from the gl spawn area itself just before it spawns.

At mid pu spawn times the def can decide to pick it up and bring it back to home pu sometimes, this is usually only feasible if there is a high chance of succeeding (mid is not full of enemy railers etc) and if there is need for this in the first place. This map is popular to have def get double pu sometimes in clan wars and practices, it is however not recommend in pickups, so even if def ends up carrying mid pu to his home pu it is recommended to leave them for the attackers.

One more map hailing from the notorious threewave pack. Known as p5 back in Q3, it didn’t really get the community love in QL, and is mostly labeled as boring and masochistic.

Defense
Shining forces is a straightforward def map. The def will control his ya + shards while generally behind his flag with rg out. While taking his ya he can also support the mid ra position by landing a few rails on the enemy there. The def will also help with rg from high at mid pu times but making sure there is nobody sneaking on to flag area, it is never recommended to leave high or low entrances to allow for a speedy return to flag area.

Because of the very open spaces in the map it is not open to much spamming but rather def’s rely on rg + lg extensively. The only possible spam area is to shoot rockets down to ya from rl area when it’s known that enemies are approaching from low. The only times the def will support ra or pu is when the high def player is in position and / or the def is aware the route he does not cover is safe, otherwise it is usually not worth the risk. As long as the def has high accuracy with rg + lg, takes his ya, and is in position by the flag while enemies approach it, it is very hard to take him out.