Defensive strategies

• Defend bottlenecks and Layer your defense - most maps have a couple of bottlenecks in them. Position your defense so that these bottlenecks are defended.
• Work in teams - a single man team loses, while defending bottlenecks work in a team of 2 classes that support each other, engineer/soldier, hwguy/soldier, demoman/soldier - pretty much anything with a soldier.
• Defend deep - simple maths here... the further into your base the enemy dies the further they have travelled and hence that extra 10-15 seconds they travelled before dying adds up to less attack runs.
• Overlap fields of fire - more maths - two people kill someone in half the time, limiting the enemy to half the amount of damage they can cause. In a 2 on 2 situation with equal classes a team that concentrates their fire to one target at a time should come out on top of the other team.
• Communicate - you should always notify your team of incoming enemy and especially if you are leaving your position.
• Use grenades - Use grenades to flush the enemy out of cover into your weapons.
• Use killing zones - Many maps have good kill zones. In 2fort5 the best kill zones are at the bottom of the lift and the small area near the bottom of the spiral.

Offensive strategies

• Co-ordinate your offensive efforts - Attacking on your own is useless and will not do much more than reduce the effectiveness of an attack.
• Concentrate your firepower - when forced to face a defender head on try and out gun them by 2-1 or 3-1.
• Rally between defensive positions - regroup between the 1st and 2nd defensive layers so that you hit your enemy at the same time
• Choose your point of attack - attack where the enemy defense is weakest, where a defender is on their own and you can outgun them.
• Lure the enemy away from their positions - engage and draw the enemy away so that you open a hole in their defense.
• Use grenades to maximum effect - kill enemy behind cover or to isolate your attack route from the enemy defenders
• Skirmish with the enemy - when your attacking group has passed the second line of defense any attackers who have died should return and engage the forward defense in a skirmish battle. This stops them from blocking off avenues of escape for your team when they have the flag and hopefully draws them into a fight with you. The aim is not to kill them but to tie them up for as long as possible.