Assault

Airstrip
The Airstrip map has plenty of flora among its pathways and roads, so you can expect plenty of surprise attacks from the brush as you make your way towards flags and enemy positions. This is especially true if you’re on the assault team, of course; you shouldn’t expect everyone on the defending team to just wait around in their base for you to come along. Some soldiers, especially grunts, will usually be waiting outside the gates to pick off support soldiers who’re attempting to destroy installations.

For the offensive team, it’s tempting to take your buggy and bust into the Tower facility at the beginning of the game, but since you only have one vehicle, this will usually result in a team of two facing off against the enemy team in its full strength. If you’re playing on a smaller server, and the defending team doesn’t have more than four or five players on it, you may be able to pull off a rush like this, but if the server has more than ten people on it, you’re better off parking your buggy a ways from one of the gates (the one on the western side of the map is usually the last one to be built) and attempt to pick off any soldiers that come down the road, while waiting for your foot soldiers to catch up. When you think your forces are strong enough to mount an attack, charge in and start using your minigun to take down any enemies you see, but don’t expect to live too long, as all it takes is one rocket to kill you. You’ll also need to be careful when capturing the flag; people with machine guns or rocket launchers will sometimes lie prone atop the two buildings here, waiting for the conversion countdown to begin before popping up and killing anything below.

The second flag is located at an airstrip. The amount of space around the flag makes it difficult to defend, and matters aren’t helped any by the inclusion of an unblockable road along the eastern edge of the map. There are two main roads that can be walled off, but the small access road leading up to the eastern hills has no buildable objects on it, so you’ll want to watch that location for infantry. If you’re interested in aggressive defense, there’s a hill to the south of the hangar that leads to a ridge overlooking one of the access roads; a rocket launcher here can wreak havoc on approaching vehicles. The top of the hangar (there are ladders on either side) can also make a nice spot for a rocket launcher or OICW soldier, but it’s kind of trite, and you’ll have to watch your back to ensure that no enemies come up the ladders. If you’re just interested in flag camping, you can lie prone inside the rear of the plane with a machine gun or OICW; this should give you an easy line of sight to anyone attempting to convert it.

The heliport flag is, of course, the toughest one for the assaulting team to capture. There are three main access points, but each one is easily walled off by the defenders, meaning that a few of your soldiers will have to be of the Support class to break through. It’s probably unwise to attempt a coordinated breakthrough at a single gate, even were this possible on an Internet server; you’ll just be clumped up, and an easy target for anyone with a rocket launcher. If you can bring the 4WD up from the airstrip, you should be able to get some easy kills by waiting for one of your support team members to blow a gate before blasting through; you may discombobulate the enemy long enough for your infantrymen to cap the flag. There’s also a rear entrance to the heliport, if you’re willing to go the long way around and approach from the northeast. You’ll have to swim through a small lake, but the stairs nearby are unblocked and often unwatched.

Dam
The first flag here, in the village, is almost unguardable for the defensive team; you have no gates or walls to build, and your enemies will be approaching both from the beach and from the hills, with a gaggle of infantry and two buggies. Holding out for more than five minutes on most servers will be an act of heroism; try to build your minigun and bunker and hold off troops with rocket launchers from the tower. If you’re assaulting, go for broke and use the buildings for cover as you approach. If you just want to take down the enemies with a sniper rifle, check out the building to the top of the hill to the west of the buggies; its porch gives a decent line of sight to the flag base and the building beyond, where rocket launcher soldiers will often camp in the windows.

The only unguardable access point to the second flag is to the northwest of the village; you’ll have to approach from the southeast, then take a right and turn into a long valley that’ll wrap around into the base. It’s circuitous enough to usually be counterproductive, though; you’re better off just waiting for a support soldier to blast the gate, then helping your teammates capture the flag. There are plenty of corners and buildings for defending players to hide away in, so it’ll take a concentrated effort by your team to wrest control of the camp from the enemy.

The final flag atop the dam can be difficult to defend, due to the distance between the approach paths; it can be hard to dash back and forth to rebuild your gates and walls as they’re destroyed. Space does work for you in one way, however: the flag on the dam is quite a distance away from the camp flag, meaning that if you can spot a mass of enemies before they reach the rear of the flag and pick a few of them off, the fallen soldiers will respawn a few hundred yards to the rear and will have to walk all the way back. Infantry coming over the hill from the east can be a problem, so build your tower near the dam’s courtyard and machine gun or snipe them as they approach. You can also camp away with a rocket launcher in one of the two cracks between the walls near the flag itself.