Swiftwater

Swiftwater
Basic Information
Developer(s):	Unknown
Map Info
Environment:	Alpine
Setting:	Daylight, sunny
Map Overview

Swiftwater is a single-stage Payload map. The Alpine-styled map features 4 control points and encourages continuous pushing from BLU while trying to break RED's defenses.

As displayed on a film projected inside BLU's spawn, BLU has been bottling water to make a quick profit. However, RED has caught onto this tactic and is poisoning BLU's water reserves from within the RED base, under the guise of its Red Planet Chemicals operation. Thus, BLU's objective is to push the bomb cart to RED's base, where it will detonate, destroying the base and ending their water poisoning plans.

Swiftwater was made an official map in the Meet Your Match Update. It is often used for competitive Highlander games.

Locations

Note: If you're having trouble with finding the locations listed here, you can scroll down to the Helpful overview section to see their exact position marked on the map.

Checkpoint 1

Cart start: The Cart starts on the left of the Blu's spawn.
L shaped ditch: As the cart starts moving forward it will cross a ditch witch cuts the area of the first checkpoint in two. The ditch first begins right beneath the bridge the cart crosses in order to go over the ditch, the ditch then continues to the right of the cart until it reaches the small shack. There, the ditch takes a 90 degree turn to the left and continues moving in that direction until it reaches the barn where it finally stops, thus carving out a shape of an inverted letter "L" in the area of checkpoint A-
Shifty's Quick Shot: Shifty's Quick Shot is the name of the small shack which prevents the ditch from moving in the direction it originally started thus forcing it to make its sharp turn to the left and move towards the barn. The shack is positioned right in front of the right-most left spawn.
Main House: Once the cart crosses over the bridge which is above the ditch, it will make a sharp turn to the left, shortly after, it will make another sharp turn, this time to the right. After doing all those maneuvers it will start to climb a slight incline for a short period of time before proceeding to make yet another turn to the right. After its turn, the cart will go by a large, two-story house which occupies a significant portion of this area. Due to its size and importance, this house is simply called: "Main House".
Front yard: The area in front of the Main House is called: "The Front Yard". This yard is a common defensive spot for the Red as there is a large fence facing the Blu's spawn and protecting the Yard quite well from Blu attacks.
Checkpoint A: After passing the Main House, the cart will once again, find itself crossing a bridge over the ditch. The cart has already crossed the same ditch before, however, since the ditch made its infamous turn at the Shifty's Quick Shot shack, it is once again in the cart's path. The bridge which the cart will use to cross this ditch is also the location of checkpoint A, meaning that once the cart starts crossing the bridge, it will capture the first checkpoint and may proceed to the second one.

The start of the map.
The Front Yard, a common place for RED to set up defenses.
The view of the ditch.

Checkpoint 2

Tunnel: As the cart finishes crossing the checkpoint bridge it will now enter a tunnel. In the tunnel, the cart will make some wild twists and turns around corners before finally exiting the tunnel facing the same direction it faced when it originally started out at the beginning of the round.
Catwalks: As the cart exits the tunnel it will enter the "second area", another wide open area which contains the second checkpoint. The most prominent feature of this area is the Catwalks, tight wooden platforms hanging in the sky, connecting two main buildings of the second area: the Barn and the Sawmill
Sawmill: There is a large wooden building, right on the left of the first Red spawn.
Red spawn: The first Red spawn is positioned directly opposite of the tunnel exit, right across the second checkpoint.
Barn: A huge building on the right side of the second checkpoint and in a general middle position of the entire map. This building connects the first, second, and third checkpoints and the areas they reside in.
Second checkpoint: The second checkpoint is positioned on the left side of the Barn, right under one of the Catwalks.

These tunnels offer many flanking opportunities.
Showing more of the tunnels.

Checkpoint 3

Silos: Once the third checkpoint is captured, the cart will start rolling down a small incline, make an abrupt turn to the left and enter the area of the third checkpoint. In the middle of the now much more enclosed area are three tall silos springing up from the ground.
Checkpoint C: The checkpoint C is itself positioned in between the three silos which will be on its left side and the Red Front Area which will be on its right side.
Front Area: There is a large area in front of the second Red spawn which is commonly used as a defensive holdout.

The narrow path of the cart.
There are many sightlines onto the Payload track.

Checkpoint 4

Railway Building: As the cart passes over the checkpoint C, it will go through a chokepoint and find itself in a much more open field. As it enters this field, it will make a turn to the right, hugging the walls of the previous Red spawn which will be on its right and passing by a small building called the "Railway Building" on its left.
Wall: After the cart climbs up an incline, it will proceed to make yet another turn, now to the left where it will pass by a low, but long wall on its right.
Corner house: The cart will peacefully cruise next to the aforementioned wall for some time until it reaches the end of it (the wall). Then, it will make a complete 180-degree turn in order to go around the wall, passing by yet another house called: "The Corner House".
Checkpoint D: Once it passes the Corner House, the cart only needs to go a few more meters to reach the fourth checkpoint which will be sitting just before a steep decline.

This part of the map is very open.
A small close-quarters section.

Checkpoint 5

Steep decline: After capturing checkpoint D, the cart will now start descending downwards.
Battlements: Once the cart completes its descend, it will even out on flat ground and past under the Battlements, a long building above it which stretches all the way from the topmost edge of the map, to the previous Red spawn.
Pit: Going under the battlements puts the cart just a few meters from the Pit, the final checkpoint, and consequently the cart's final destination.
Cliffs:Surrounding the Pit from three of its sides are the cliffs. High and steep elevated position which serve as the final obstacle to the Blu team.

Entrance into the final stretch.
The final checkpoint.

Helpful overview

1.Front Yard
2.Main House
3.Ditch
4.Shifty's Quick Shot shack
5.Tunnel
6.Sawmill
7.Catwalks
8.Front area
9.Silos
10.Railway Building
11.Corner house
12.Steep Decline
13.Battlements
14.Cliff
15.Barn
Unmarked area on point C: Wall

Blue/red diagonal lines: Blu/Red first spawn
Blue/red double diagonal lines: Blu/Red second spawn
Blue/red double diagonal lines w/ a circle: Blu/Red third spawn

Yellow circle: First checkpoint
Green circle: Second checkpoint
Black circle: Third checkpoint 
Pink circle: Fourth checkpoint
White circle: Last checkpoint and the Pit

Strategy

Main article: Community Swiftwater strategy

Update history

July 7, 2016 Patch #1 (Meet Your Match Update)

Swiftwater was added to the game.

January 16, 2017 Patch

Fixed using the wrong thumbnail images for pl_Swiftwater.

Changelog

This is the changelog of the map before it was added to the game.

Changelog:

Build 12 Changes
Bug fixes
Removed Rollback (from build 11)

Build 11 Changes
Stage 1 layout significantly changed
Added a CP before the final CP. More fighting takes place in courtyard now.
Reduced amount of time awarded for CPs.

Build 7 Changes
Tons of changes. Most important:
Blue Spawn remade - doors not stay open on map start
CP4 tweaked to give red an advantage again. Buildings in upper area have a Sniper vantage and a good shortcut behind blue.
Fixed getting stuck in red spawning areas.
Red can exit spawn anywhere after round starts.

Old Fixes
Fixed Engy exploit at CP2
New Red Spawn layout - more straightforward and should be less campable at cp3 and cp4. Shortened spawn times to compensate for slightly longer travel. (The changes should improve gameplay on insta spawn servers as well)
New spawn exit from CP2 to prevent camping.
Vastly increased frame rate.