Capture the Flag

This article was adapted and revised from the "Capture the Flag" article of the Official Team Fortress Wiki.

Wave goodbye to your secret crap, dumbass!

The Scout after making off with the enemy intelligence

Capture the Flag, abbreviated "CTF", is a game mode where each team has an intelligence briefcase (or other item) that they must defend while trying to steal each other's intelligences. The team to reach a set number of stolen intelligences first wins.

Gameplay

At the start of a Capture the Flag round, each team has their own Intelligence in a specific zone of the map. A team must retrieve the flag from inside the enemy base and carry it back to their own, usually a team's capture zone is the same as where their flag spawns. Teams must simultaneously defend their own flag and capture that of their opponent.

Reaching and walking over the enemy intelligence will cause a player to pick it up. While carrying the flag, players will leave a paper trail behind them, show an outline to their teammates indicative of their current health, and have the compass needle on the HUD point towards them. This means the flag carrier is highly visible to both teams, who must work to defend or stop them while they return to safety.

When the intelligence is dropped, a 60 second timer will display over it. If it has not been picked up again in this time, it will return to its starting position.

The Announcer will inform teams when flags are taken, dropped or captured. The HUD also displays the status of any team's flag and the total number of flag captures for each team. Once this number reaches the limit (default 3), that team wins the round.

Usually, a Capture The Flag round has a maximum time limit equal to the current map timer. If neither team has captured within the allotted time, the game will go to Sudden Death, or stalemate.

Four-Team

In Four-Team, a team may only capture a given opponent's flag once. After this, that flag will become locked for the capturing team until they have taken the flags of the remaining two. Once all three have been each captured once, they will all unlock again, provided the capture limit has not been reached and the game continues.

Maps

The following is a list of official Capture the Flag maps:

• 2Fort
• Well (CTF)
• Turbine
• Sawmill (CTF)
• Double Cross
• Landfall
• Casbah
• Pelican Peak
• Penguin Peak

Trivia

• Capture the Flag is the only gamemode to be present in every single Team Fortress game so far. Quake Fortress, Team Fortress Classic, and Team Fortress 2 all have Capture the Flag as gamemode.