Stage 1
The first stage of Gold Rush can be quite difficult for the attackers, certainly more so than Dustbowl. CP1 lies within sight of the spawn exits, but requires passage through progressive layers of defence. First of all, the defenders will get right up in your face and pop their übercharges to counter the initial rush, and from there try and keep you pinned back with mostly snipers, demomen and heavies. However once you manage to push up and clear out the low area out the front of the house and the house as well, any further defensive efforts will tend to be unorganised and easily overrun.
The most important requirement for an easy CP1 capture is the initial über rush. You should have 3 or 4 übers: 1 on a demoman to wipe out the sentries inevitably waiting just over the hills, one on a pyro to rush the house, and the rest on demomen and heavies to scatter the troops. Once both the area over the hills and the little house on the right are cleared out, get all the demomen, heavies and medics to rush to CP1 (forget the cart), and spam it with stickies and bullets. If no defenders can get out, you will face no more resistance.
CP2 poses a much larger problem. The defenders will spawn closer, the attackers spawn further away, and once the cart is out of the perilously confined tunnel, it must drive a good 30 metres out in the open on the defenders’ terms. The most important objective to set up CP2 is map control – make sure your team garrisons the important locations (the balconies to the left and right of the tunnel exit) in order to force the defenders into a defensive style of play rather than a forward defensive one. If they can get demomen locking down the tunnel from CP1 and to the double balconies to the right (which they can quite easily), the attackers’ movement is severely restricted.
With control of these points, teleporters are critical. You need the heavy classes (soldier, demoman, heavy) to soak up damage and fend the defenders off, but these classes are also the slow ones. 2 teleporters is a good number, either in the loft up the stairs from CP1 or even better up the stairs at the end of the CP1 tunnel.
Throwing yourselves at CP2 is not going to yield results. The defence has to be peeled away systematically, and this is impossible without map control. Once you are holding the two balconies, demomen from each of them can spam sticky bombs on the bridge (from the right), and out the front of the defenders’ tunnel. This restricts the defenders’ movement, and channels them vaguely along the cart tracks. This may not sound ideal, but it’s far better than being flanked whenever you venture outside.
Like CP1, it’s often far easier to clear out the defence first and then push the cart while holding back RED reinforcements. Most of the defence can be wiped out with 2 simultaneous übercharges – one on a demoman to kill the buildings, and the other on a pyro/heavy to clear the troops out from the riverbed area. In the confusion jump a few soldiers and demomen onto the defenders’ spawn roof and constantly harass their reinforcements (especially the snipers) while some heavies and medics push the cart. Try and get people to rush just after the übers rather than before or too long after to maximise the advantage. If you can kill all the sentries and clear all the defenders out of the riverbed area (easier said than done), you should be able to control that much of the map for long enough.
Stage 2
I find stage 2 of Gold Rush closely resembles its Dustbowl opposite. Both require the attackers to rush out of a bunker at the start into fire from both side (with a sneaky side passage to the left) to CP1, then through a couple of tunnels to reach the open CP2. The big difference of course is the cart, which prevents sneaky rushes to cap the CPs, so this is more of a grind.
Again, the initial über rush has very definite targets in mind. You want to get a heavy/medic into the building just out the front on the left, and a demoman or pyro to clear out any fortifications on the balcony to the right. The building on the left is critical – if the defenders garrison it, they can bombard the cart with little risk of personal injury, but if the attackers hold it, it forces the defenders into the open and greatly reduces the amount of cover they have access to. In addition, their engineers will generally build teleporters thereabouts, and without them it’s a long journey back to the front lines.
The pyro or demoman rush simply goes from the trench exit up the hill and onto the balcony on the right to clear it out. Try and maintain this high ground to fire down on the defenders rather than having it the other way around. Spamming sticky bombs around the near side of the bridge is a great deterrent. The heavy rush into the house works best if it can leave from the left tunnel exit, then up the small stairs to the cart tracks, rather than down the left passage. The reason for this is that it’s a far shorter journey – the left passage is longer than it seems, especially when you take into account all the manoeuvring you have to do when you come out the other end. And with the shotty out, you can even help out in distracting the main defence. Once inside the house, go nuts with the minigun and fall back on the ammo and health boxes.
With the immediate area under control, the next step is the same as stage 1: move the bulk of your troops up to the big tunnel exit at CP1 and spam it with sticky bombs and miniguns while a handful of other players escort the cart up to meet them, free of enemy fire. If the defenders are being uncooperative, an überdemo rush through the troops to CP1 to sticky up the tunnel exit can work too, so long as the rest of your team keeps the bypassed defenders under their thumb.
CP2 is often the stumbling block for many attacking teams, and with good reason. Following the cart track, the escort must pass through 3 solid choke points (tunnel entrance, tunnel exit, and under the bridge), all of which should be heavily stickies by defenders. The obvious way to avoid choke points is to take a different route, and like most situations in this map, it is wise to clear out the roadblock before trundling the cart through. “Different route” here refers of course to the windows overlooking the tunnel exit, a vantage point I find is hideously underexploited. Like stage 1, a couple of teleporters is a good number, and that top floor is an ideal place to stash the exits. Watch for rocket jumpers and spies!
The best approach to reaching CP2 is to take it one step at a time. With teleporters up and reinforcements falling from the windows, it should be easy enough to reach the tunnel exit with the cart. The next step is to get the cart up near the bridge, an area usually covered by a couple of sentries. Once again, übercharges are perfect for spearheading areas and clearing defenders, especially when the rest of the team pushes up behind. One or two übers on a demo (for the sentries) and a pyro or heavy (for the troops) should be enough to take control of the near side of the bridge. Garrison the bridge building, solidify your map control so far, and get ready for the final step.
The last corner is often painfully tense for both teams; the defenders desperate to keep their barricade together, and the attackers desperate to tear it down for just long enough to push that little cart through. The main defensive weapons are sticky bombs (around the cart and on the tracks) and sentry guns (around the corners under the bridge, and to the far left behind the rocks). I have seen and been involved in many a failed über rush, overcome by the weight of defensive number. My belief is that two is minimum number of simultaneous übercharges you should be popping to clear out the defence, and those 2 should be on at least 1 demoman (2 demos is a good choice too) and maybe a heavy. Concentrate on the sentries, then the demomen, then control the corners of the spawn building to cut of defensive reinforcements. This is long enough, so basically the trick is build up an attack, and swamp them with numbers in one rush.
Stage 3
With balanced teams, stage 3 is a hell of a challenge for the offence. It is broken up into a distinct 4 sections: the first is from BLU spawn to CP1, through a fairly deep, uphill canal. From CP1 to CP2, it’s down a flat, straight track sandwiched between buildings on either side, not unlike a Western movie setting. Round the corner at CP2 and it’s a flat, open stroll with a couple of notable features, and then around the final corner lies the final segment ending in the final terminus, where the defenders invariably stack up the defences and make their last stand. Ultimately the attacking team needs to be disciplined, since throwing players at the defence is a sure way to not go anywhere.
Let’s start with the first section. There are two critical locations here: the high ground along the sides of the canal and the back area behind the fence. The attackers must control the sides of the canal before they can move the cart, or else they will have all kinds of munitions lobbed down on them indefinitely. There will always be a sentry or two up the top which should be dealt with by an überdemoman at the very start. A good way to hold the top once taken is to spam sticky bombs and rockets at the narrow paths the defenders must walk down to oppose you – this can be rather discouraging.
The area behind the fence is crucial, because while the defenders hold that unchallenged, they can put a lethal sniper there and they have access to some very useful pickups. It’s unlikely the attackers will be able to take this area until the cart reaches it, but they must make a contest back there. Send the occasional pyro around to the left to make the snipers think twice or a demoman to lob some KCl over the wall, and after making some noise head back towards spawn to shoot the defence in the back. Once the cart does get close to this point, get 2 or 3 demomen and sticky spam the arch over CP1 like you’ve never spammed before. It’s the defenders’ only way out.
The path to CP2 is far easier, since the defenders’ spawn is pushed back to the final point and most of their team is dead from defending CP1. Make use of the buildings on either side – forget the cart and garrison them immediately, heavies and demos can make short work of any REDs trying to run down the track. The little bend to CP2 is easily defensible with a sticky and sentry spam, but any defence should also be very crackable with a double übercharge. If you’re having trouble, pop an über on a demoman for the buildings and a pyro for the panic. Watch out for compression blasts! A sniper back near CP1 is a great help too, and make full use of the window in the building on the right overlooking CP2. This spot is demoman heaven.
It’s usually an easy push up to the final corner, but once you get there the offence usually hits a big, RED wall. The cart must push through perhaps the chokiest choke point ever, and there is plenty of defensive cover to hammer out some sentry guns. To overcome this, the attackers must be smart. They have to use every route available to flank the defence, and there are a few of them. Side note that is really far more crucial than the name suggests: the attackers absolutely must have a couple of engineers to set up teleporters right at the final bend. It’s quite a hike from spawn, and without teleporters the most important classes (soldiers, demomen, and especially heavies) take an eternity to get back to the front lines, where they will probably die shortly after anyway. There’s a couple of good spots for engineer bases – the little hut mentioned below and the ledge overlooking the hole to the underground path. Build teleporters!
First and most obvious is the path around the very back corner of the map into the small room, where there is a hole you can drop through into excellent flanking position. This is where most übercharges should come from to surprise the defence and give them less chance to hold you back – demomen especially to take down the engineers and their pets, and the odd pyro to cause havoc. The map will most likely be won with a coordinated double über out of this hole managing to kill a majority of the defence, after which the rest of the team can follow in and use the 20 second defensive respawn to push the cart. Remember to hit the sentries first with the übers.
Another route that is effective for even more surprising attacks is underground. There is a fairly well-marked hole just back from the final corner, and dropping down there leads you down an underground route to the area under the bridge to the final terminus. You can go up the stairs to the bridge (if you want to get obliterated), or take the other stairs up to the windows overlooking side bridge. If you can get this far without being seen, you can shoot off a few explosives/heads or drop down discretely depending on your class. Remember that when you kill someone they will see you in the deathcam, so you may be safe for about 20 seconds, but down count on it. This can also be a great spot to launch an über from, or to provide flanking support for another über.
Remember, the defence is not at all easily overcome, and you will need übercharges to get any kind of penetration. This is made significantly harder now that the pyros have their compression blast, so you really have to make them count. The best way to do this is to pop two, or even three, at a time and take half the defence each. Wipe out the key defensive targets (sentries, medics, heavies) and then have the rest of the team follow in behind you. Once you have temporary control of the final point, put all your pressure on the defensive spawn exits, with only a couple of people pushing the cart. Sure it’s kind of spawn camping, but if you let them get out you’re just going to have to shoot them anyway. Good luck and Godspeed, soldier!
