Great map. love the grassland theme to it. as a medic i try and get my team to go to the far left side (going through that big arch way near the medium health pack) and build up the kritzkreig. anyone got any strats for this map??


PS: who made cp_Freight?

Have a really good sniper and protect the hell out of him.

sniper really get the job done? i mean, i think the medic with the skills to dodge spam and using a kritzkreig should get it done. EG had a great match against i think Strickland on Follower. great match

Going right works as well. I've seen teams send their roamer or their demoman right as a way to mix it up. It's usually when a team is planning on playing a more aggressive strategy.

Right is better for jumping your sollies on them. You can take a big advantage against any team giving up a scout or soldier for a sniper by jumping them immediately and preventing the sniper from having the time to line up shots.

Of course, if you take a disadvantage on the initial scout + demo fight, or don't do enough damage with your jump before ~9:30, you're at a high risk of wiping completely.

I feel like going right with your combo and possibly the Demo usually results in the better fight. Best case scenario, they're using a Sniper, making them effectively down a player when you push out of the house (unless the Sniper can continue making shots at close range, since he's probably set up behind the train car on their side). If you're going that route you might be better off jumping both soldiers as soon as possible, and having your demo follow soon after, letting your scouts protect the medic for a few seconds. If your soldiers and demo can't get some kills and do some major damage in the first few seconds of the jump, you're kind of screwed at mid anyway with that push, but it's not as much of a gamble as trying to dance in and out of the other Sniper's line of sight while moving forward across the point.

Worst case scenario the other team also goes to their right and you fight a semi-reverse mid battle.

Actually worst case scenario might be that their team delays taking train until your team rounds the corner into their vision, and then jumps you after your sollies have jumped.

One way going right can go very wrong is if the enemy demo + scouts predict that you'll go right, and manage to outplay your demo + scouts. It's feasible that with a slight advantage, the enemy demo could get 2 stickies on the middle door before your combo gets out. Not really enough to deter your sollies from jumping, but enough that your medic can't really expect to walk out and live. He'll then have to use the left door, which leaves him alone in the building long enough for a scout to kill him (reacting to the successful stickies by 35 and getting in the house to hit the medic at 33-32).

That does rely on their demo managing to sticky the door though, so it's not a hard counter. You could also predict this and have your own scouts react to the stickies and move to meet the medic earlier. Since the sollies will see the stickies, there's always the option of canceling the jump from the middle door and going far right. So, in my mind, right is generally a better strategy than left if you don't want to use a sniper or are getting outsniped. It does have its issues, though.

I guess this applies to any map... but...
How many is worth the sacrifice for a medic?

If you sent a quick attack of 1 soldier and both scouts...
and all 3 go down, but the enemy medic did too...
Is that a win?

If one of your scouts manages to escape.. is THAT a win?

Where is the line drawn?

There's no hard and fast rule on how much a medic pick is worth. It's dependent on the current status of the game.

If you have charge advantage, it's not really worth losing anyone to kill their medic prior to your push. However, if you use your charge and are unable to kill their medic with it, it's suddenly very useful to kill him before he manages to withdraw. Example: you push gran mid with uber and force the enemy team off the point, but their medic retreats into garage. Cutting him off is extremely important if at all possible here, otherwise you're putting yourself in the same situation they were just in. However, trying to suicide their medic before the push is not really worthwhile.

If you have a disadvantage and are far enough between points, it's worth suiciding (potentially 2-3 players) for a pop or kill. You'll respawn in time for the next point's defense with even ubers; even if you fail the suicide, it's not like you can realistically hold a point against a charge, so you'll be falling back further anyways. Example: you popped uber on gran mid but didn't force theirs, you're forced to fall back. Now is a good time to suicide a solly to force their pop

If you have a disadvantage but your chances of killing the enemy medic aren't great and you're uncomfortably close to your next point, it's not worth the loss of a player. Example: they have your yard on gran and are preparing to push your 2. Dying now would make 2 easy for them, so it's probably better to stay inside and increase your chances of forcing a pop with spam before being forced to retreat by the threat of uber.

If your medic just died, it's especially worthwhile to suicide the enemy medic (with basically everyone who's still up, possibly excluding the demo or extremely lit players if they can feasibly escape). If they kill your medic and have theirs, they'll have an easy time with your next point, and the ensuing charge advantage will probably give them another point as well. Even if you wipe, killing their medic or forcing their pop here should give you a fighting chance 2 points later. The additional benefit of this is that a fast suicide means you'll respawn with or shortly after your medic, and avoid the annoying situation of falling back with 3 players only to have a few of them run down by scouts and given late spawns.

In all of these situations, I'm thinking of the suicider(s) as solly/scout. For a demoman, staying alive is more important because of the ability to set traps, though a demoman suicide (especially in conjunction with solly/scout) can be very effective/kill multiple players. It's also very important to avoid getting run down by scouts while retreating as demo (this is true for anyone, but demo/med especially), because the late demo death really hurts on the next point. Of course, these are very general and make some assumptions about the may. Depending on the strategy you're running, you may want to go against these vague guidelines at times. For example, if you're having trouble breaking blands last even with an uber advantage, you could try suiciding both your sollies on their medic from bottom middle while your demo+med+scouts retreat to yard, then repush with the respawn time advantage (if you killed the med, you widen your charge advantage). That's just a potential example of where you would be going against the idea of "not suiciding their med when you have charge advantage prior to a push", I don't actually know how well that particular strategy works.

Of course there are more situations that could be listed where you'd want a tailored reaction, but this post is already running rather long, so I opted to avoid being completely thorough.

This last bit is unrelated to the main point, but I'd just like to mention that it's generally better to suicide their medic quickly and die quickly once you decide to do so. Hiding for 20s for a slightly better chance of success is often not worthwhile, because you'll be 20s later spawning. Also make sure you have a kill key bound if you end up getting airshot or something and landing way the heck behind them with 10hp. They might just leave you there and have you be useless for the next minute.

So.. I'm playing follower this week, thoughts on mid-strats?
I have my own ideas, but figured it couldn't hurt to ask for more ideas.