I was spending an hour or two on a 24/7 Dustbowl server the other day. When it takes a long time to "refresh" (change maps to the same thing it was, probably to reset scores) the teams suffer from a lack of mixing. In other words, one team is way better than the other. Nobody is leaving. The winners stay on their team for obvious reasons, and the losers can't switch like little crybaby noobs because the other team has more people than them. In the end you wind up with a big score of something like 50-4 games won. I've been on the losing side, and couldn't help noticing they played well and used the same tactics as everyone else.

So I started thinking about alternate ways to go about Dustbowl play. It's easiest to do this on defense, where your objective isn't as simple as "go here and don't die for 10 seconds."

I'll list my concepts below. If anyone wants to add on, it would be just swell. I won't mention spy tactics because they're way over my head.
And wowee, it's a long list. feel free to skim.

LEVEL 1-
This starts the same way almost everywhere. Red team has an uber heavy. They wait in the shack outside blu spawn. Blue team has an uber heavy, an uber demo, and and uber pyro, and about a second and a half after the red medic hits it, they all go one after the other until there's no defense left. Smart blue players will usually reserve one uber for the next point, but that takes initiative on the medic's part which isn't as common as you might hope.
What I tried to convince my team to do, and eventually implemented myself with no help from anybody else (thats what to expect from 3 am dustbowlers), is keep as many medics as they do. At first glance that may seem obvious, and constituted of common sense, but I've never seen it happen, even on the TG server (not to say it hasn't; I just haven't seen it.). Sure, it's great to uber that heavy that puppy-guards the spawn, but keep another uber medic on the point or in the 2nd story tunnels right behind to cater to another heavy. This way one can prevent the inevitable end of the first point SGs triggered by an uber demo that's been waiting for that moment his whole life. This worked when I tried it. As long as you can keep their setup time ubers from killing your turrets, the point might be defended and definitely will last longer. Especially on other servers where people don't communicate, most medics are too dumb to stay in good enough cover to charge. Keep in mind that this still requires alert engineers, maybe a sniper, and cooperation.


Level 2-
In all my life, I've never seen any red team defend the first point. In my opinion, it's usually unrealistic to put too much focus on there. (I'm not saying it isn't worth defending; I'm just saying it typically won't work.) Also, more than one sentry that can save the point itself usually doesn't seem to help much; most locations are way too open, and give the gun a short practical range. My idea is to have the indoor SG that will probably be destroyed by an uber heavy, as well as a few dispensers to help back up the medics and to give the heavy group a continuous spray.
Everyone does this, my "alternate" strategy mostly constitutes a few minor tweaks:
a) Have a few engies, sure, but only have one build a sentry on the first point. Have at least one other build his dispenser in that area, because it will serve a better purpose there and there are plenty of ammo locations around the 2nd point.
b) Other engineers should build guns on the second point, one gun at a time so it can get upgraded faster (once again an obvious tactic that is often overlooked.) They should also pay special attention to the tunnels, particularly the forward base with the one-way gate.
c)A possible, but unreliable choice is to hide a teleporter exit inside the first point house. Quick, greedy teams that shout "push, push" on the comms will usually not think to look there. If they do, a heavy-medic combo could show up out of nowhere sometime after the point is capped to create one-time havoc.

By the time the blu folk get to the second point, it should be pretty buff with a number of sentries applicable to the player count and the handiwork of a couple demomen (they could fight on the frontline but might want to keep cover so their stickies, which (a few of them) should be be littering the tunnels, don't go away.)
As you all know, it pretty much starts to suck when they have a decent forward base, so a high concern for red (who often focuses on the point itself) should be to prevent that from happening. It's good to try to not let blu sentries go past lvl 1.

Level 3-
This is where things can get slightly more... different. Because of the fancypants layout of the map, red team has a lot of options that are usually unexplored.
My chief alternative tactic, which I know for a fact nobody uses, is to have engineers not build sentries in the quick tunnel (that closes after the first point is taken). Instead, build teleporter exits in the tunnel and sentries anywhere else. The idea is that, when there is no sentry/visible building sticking out of the window, blu will assume there's nothing up there. (sometimes they do that even with sentries, so it's plausible.) In that way, after the first point is taken, troops can still defend from the window as long as they do it stealthily. For example, heavies shouldn't do this because they probably can't get to an inconspicuous fighting spot without being noticed. It could, in theory, be used by Spies (provided they wait for the red glow to go away) that could then use their witchcraft to get in and sit outside the enemy spawn/tunnel, backstabbing until someone gets the common sense to play Pyro. Naturally even that wouldn't stop a clever and skilled spy.

During the course of my dustbowl play, a couple scouting expeditions revealed that very few blue players use the underground tunnel. Seriously. A lot less than you might think. My theory is that great rewards could be reaped by sending people other than spies through there. However, chances to test this are few and far between, and in a select few servers I've seen people building sentries pointing down those stairs. Not my #1 choice.

Other modifications to typical play:
-Try to keep control of the side house on the stage left side of the point. Most games that gets taken and retaken, over and over again. The important part is that red can often use two different entrances into that house and always at least one. Clever ledge jumping or lazy rocket jumping can allow joyful experiences like level 3 sentries and heavymedics to keep your extra base.
-UBERPROOF YOUR DEFENSE. In every situation where the red team has a decent defense, I've seen one solution that caps the final point. One, but usually two ubers, with demoman and/or heavy, come storming in and kill everyone, every man, woman, and sentry. The point is an uncontested cap while everyone on red is busy respawning or playing (dead man walking) Sniper/Engineer/Spy. If an uber is immenent, hide a pyro and a soldier or something in a side house or spawn. They come out as soon as the blue ubers eexpire and either kill them or slow the cap long enough for more troops to spawn. Once again, you'd think it to be obvious, but haven't we all been thouroughly owned by the 15-second respawn?
-If your final point is under attack, keep in mind you're mere steps away from the spawn room. If you are about to die, you won't do any good to your team anyway. Go ahead and resupply because that's faster than getting killed and spawning again.

OK that's all I can think of now. I think all these points are legitimate, and if they aren't, well, that's just your opinion. (I respect your opinion. I promise.)