Mashtuur City

The city of Mashtuur is going to be the scene of some pretty hardcore infantry battles. This online-only map (you can't run bot matches here) revolves around the proper use of squads and the battle for the dominance of the town's rooftops. Almost every building here has a ladder attached to it, so you can expect this to be a vertical battle as much as a battle of horizontal distance. Keep your heads up, in other words.

The main strategic decision here will revolve around whether or not you should blow the two central bridges here. Doing so will prevent enemy vehicles and infantry from crossing the river without making a lengthy end-around down the streambed. Blowing the bridges can help slow down the pace of a battle that's going against you, akin to a basketball coach calling a timeout when the other team goes on a hot streak. It won't help much unless you control both of the flags on your side of the map, though, obviously enough.

On the largest version of the map, you can expect the transport helicopters to be pretty fiercesome opponents. Neither side gets an attack chopper, but the miniguns on either side of the transport choppers will make them deadly to go up against as an infantryman. You can expect to get hit by turrets or anti-air shots if you spend too much time in the air, but banking over the town will let your gunners spot enemies on rooftops and call them out to your friendly soldiers.

You'll also need to beware enemies coming after your base on the 64-player map. There are bridges that can be blown to prevent unfettered access along the roads leading around the edges of the map, but it's still easy to focus too much on the town itself and leave your base undefended. Base defense can be a fairly boring task if your enemies never attempt to rush your base, but it can be a vital job when you're faced with extinction. If you're getting pushed around in the city itself, you can expect your enemies to try and close the vise by capturing your base before wiping you out in the city below.

Operation Clean Sweep

Operation Clean Sweep is probably the most aircraft-intensive map in the entire game; even on the 16-player version of the map, you're going to have jets swooping around overhead and choppers shuttling players around the map, and there'll also be anti-aircraft vehicles attempting to take you down from the ground. Most of the map points are going to be exposed to bombing runs, too, so you'd better hope your fighter pilots are better than those of the other team, or you're going to get pelted over and over again. If worst comes to worst, look for one of the anti-aircraft vehicles scattered around the map and start popping.

Although the map is dominated by water, it's not overly difficult to get from flag to flag, thanks to bridges and the occasional spit of shallow water. That said, you can definitely put a crimp in the movement of your enemies by bombing the bridges between flags that they control; a good USMC special forces soldier can even parachute out of a plane at the beginning of the round and go behind enemy lines to segregate their forward bases from rear support, making the job of capturing the first couple of bases a mite easier.

As a MEC defender, you can't assume that your opponents are going to make a straight charge to the southeast; you can expect enterprising squads to grab boats or transport choppers and capture some of your rearward bases. Information is key here; if you're the commander, constantly scan for anomalous blips in the middle of the water, and if you're up in a chopper or jet, be on the look for boats and radio their locations to your teammates. If you're overly worried about boat incursions, you might want to grab an APC and float it out into the water somewhere near the US base and pelt anyone that attempts to encroach on your territorial waters.