Sharqi Peninsula

The Sharqi Peninsula is going to be one of the more intense maps in the game, but does a great job of invoking a sense of desperate defense, especially on the part of the USMC marines. This is an urban map, with flags that are going to be difficult for armor to hold, thanks to the tight streets and TOW missiles. Like it or not, battles here are going to be decided primarily by infantry combat, so get into a squad and get ready to fight.

Sharqi plays quite a bit differently in its 16-player state than it does in its larger variants, since the MEC forces only have one permanent spawn point. Since they only have so many ways to reach the upper level of the map, where the USMC bases are, they can sometimes get boxed by enemy forces and have a hard time escaping from the abattoir. The primary task for the MEC here, at least at the beginning of the round, is to get up the hill and take one of the flags, and then hold it. It's probably best to try heading up via the western road, as the tank from the eastern USMC base will likely be found on the eastern road. If you jeep your way up the road, you can often get back to the northern base, which is usually poorly defended.

The central base is usually the scene of the most intense infantry fights, since the flag here is raised up onto the roof of one of the construction sites. You can reach it by either climbing the stairs up from below, or climbing the stairs in the building to the west and sprintjumping across the small gap between them. There aren't a lot of spots to hide while you're attempting to capture this flag, with the small corner between the wall and the crates being the obvious spot. You can expect that to be the first place for enemies to look if they come after you, so stay on your guard.

Watch for enemy infantry that attempt to get on top of these buildings, especially if you're on the USMC side.

The 32 and 64-player versions of this map are an entirely different beast altogether. The primary difference is that the MEC forces will have not one but three different uncapturable bases from which to attack, meaning that you'll never, ever be able to box them into a corner or know precisely where they'll attack from next. You're not going to find many more challenging maps than this if you're playing as a USMC squad against a decent MEC enemy. The key point is to be absolutely sure to keep control of your easternmost flag, which houses your artillery and commander equipment; your artillery, especially, is going to be critical in your efforts to effect punitive measures on the MEC forces when they're attempting to capture one of your flags. Losing the UAV is going to be just as troubling, due to all the buildings on which enemies can climb. If you enjoy playing defensively, then you may want to sit back as a special forces character and lay C4 on the ramp, blowing it when enemies appear.

Besides that, the USMC forces here are going to have to scramble to keep control of as many of the flags as they possibly can. It's almost impossible to hold all of the flags and keep the MEC forces bleeding, since they'll usually get a flag or two fairly early. Since they'll likely begin with more tickets than you will, you'll just have to wage a battle of attrition and hope that your teammates can kill more quickly than the enemy can.

Assault kits are probably your best bet for sustained lethality here. The grenade launchers are fantastic at taking down enemy infantry, which will be the bulk of your targets on this map, and you can always use your primary weapon to snipe across the medium-range encounters that you come across.

Songhua Stalemate

Like a few other of the Chinese maps, Songhua sees the USMC and Chinese forces going toe-to-toe in a valley, but here, it's not the length of the valley that makes for a challenge, it's the width. The center of the map consists of numerous spits of territory connected by land bridges, some of which are actually partially submerged. Unless you're in an amphibious APC, there are only going to be one or two ways to move from point to point, which can make it easier for engineers and special forces to restrict the travels of vehicles.

On the two larger versions of the map, each flag is going to be a relatively self-contained battleground; with the difficulties involved in quickly getting from point to point, and the copious amounts of bamboo around to reduce your sightlines (and your framerate), you can't count on a quick rescue if you see enemy troops pouring in to an undefended flag. If you're comfortable with running in a smaller squad, then it can be helpful to mount up in a three-man FAV and using it to travel from point to point, with the squad leader dropping off soldiers outside a base, then waiting for them to gauge its defenses before heading in himself. If the soldiers get wiped out, they can respawn in the FAV; if not, you can capture the base and move on to the next.

The critical bases here are likely going to be the flags that start out underneath the control of the USMC and Chinese forces, on top of the hills to the east and west of the central battlegrounds. Getting to these bases is quite difficult if you're attempting to approach in a vehicle, thanks to the large hills leading up to them; you can sometimes find your APC or tank just stalling out entirely thanks to the grade. If you can manage to scale the hills, though, and succeed in capping the base and holding it, then you should have a distinct vehicular advantage over your opponents. If you're concerned with defending your base, then you may want to try lining the paths up to it and just take your vehicles straight down the hill. They'll probably take damage from the jostling, but you'll be able to rest a bit more easily knowing that any enemies that come along will likely be blown away by your explosive treats.