Ok, before anyone gets annoyed at this, I've done numerous searches and can not find any answer. I'm personally getting annoyed at people who link to the IW CoD4 wiki because it is broken though I understand that at the time of those posts it was most likely not broken.

So, in my searches I found some info about setting up the flags with the capture area and linking them together. I also already placed both axis and allies start spawns, and general mp_dom_spawns.

Now, I haven't been able to test if the flags work properly, because it won't load. It's the typical "switch to backlot" problem. One thing I realized (and face-palmed myself afterwards) is that the compile tools loads the map as TDM.

So, in conclusion for the time being, what is the easiest way to test gametypes other than war. And what might I be missing in terms of the Domination gametype?

You mean it loads up TDM and switches to backlot, but you want to know how to initially load it as dom?

Two solutions:

1) Go to server set up and set the gametype to domination and then load via console

or

2) in the console type g_gametype dom and then load your map. I think that's the command, not 100% positive but if you start typing it it will tell you.

If your question is why you can't get dom to start, then you need more dom spawns. I believe there are three, and you need at least one of each.

if you launch from compiletools, tick the box that says "enable custom command line" (or something similar) and enter in the box below:

+set /g_gametype dom

you can replace the dom with any gametype you want;
war: team deathmatch
dm: free for all
koth: headquarters
sab: sabotage
sd: search and destroy

those are typed by memory, so they could be off a bit, but they should be pretty close.

Ok, well that has helped me prove that I don't have the map set up properly for Domination then. I do have dom axis start, dom allies start, and dom spawn placed in different places around the map. I'll try playing with the flag/trigger/script stuff I put in. Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Don't copy your script origins, I did that once and for some reason the scripting done in the entity editor got screwed up. Just do them all manually.