Originally Posted by Britt

Some thoughts.

1) Tunnel Vision/Lack of Strategy/The Map is Not the Terrain

I see this far too much on the 2142 server. I came to TG via the POE2 server, which has the finest gameplay I've ever experienced in BF. Yet the 2142 server is different, and not in a good way. I'm going to explain with a visual aid.

[media]http://img38.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pacplan.gif[/media]

This battle plan shows the difference between terrain and flags. Too many times I'm in a squad playing flag tag with other squads, going round and round. That's not the way to play. You can change your tactics, you can change the weapons you carry, but you cannot change the terrain the game provides you.

See, PAC should be working toward this goal. The best squad should be sent to take Statue and hold it. Statue is the key to this map. The walker is there, it has a clear field of fire to three separate flags which allows harassment fire or mutual support, and its elevation and limited access make it easier to defend. It also dominates the road. It is a very important flag. Once PAC holds Pond, Ruins, Com and Statue the infantry should deploy along the red line. Not static, and not evenly spread out. Keep your forces concentrated, and move them around, but hold that line. The blue circle is where the APC should be. This will allow it to fire mortars onto Com Tower flag. The green circle is where the tank should be, concentrating on denying the road to the enemy. The walker should concentrate on Statue, supporting the squad defending this vital flag.

Now, you see how the infantry supports the armor and the armor supports the infantry? The EU armor cannot move down the road past the line without being hit from both sides by EMP nades and Pilum rounds. If the Tiger and Groundhog stop to engage the infantry, the walker and the Nekomata kill them. EU infantry cannot attack uphill into the teeth of a squad with walker support, which means Statue becomes a firebase for harassing fire into Playground and supporting fire into Com Tower. Com Tower cannot be taken by the EU if the Romanov is lobbing mortar rounds onto the approaches to the flag. Ruins becomes even more of a death trap then usual. The PAC commander can vector the APC to kill infantry sneaking up the east side for a cap of Pond. There is a defense in depth, with any enemy threat being met with fire from different directions or completely different enemies or both. A squad full of PAC assault medics and supports might be beaten in a firefight while defending Com, but the Romanov's mortar will shred the victors with ease, and if the EU squad tries to load up on engis next time then they'll be no match for the PAC infantry.

The phrase you should remember is the "horns of a dilemma." The goal is to force the other team into a situation where all their options are equally bad. Say they decide to concentrate, as Napoleon's maxim says, "overwhelming force at the decisive point". Let's say that 15 screaming Englishmen rush Statue in all out desperation, with armored support and an orbital strike. Great. That means that the PAC can carve out ten tickets or so and organize a fast counterattack. Or the EU can keep grinding away at that line of death. Give them two options, both equally bad.

2) Coup De Mains and Forlorn Hopes

This is a classic move, made a lot easier with the BF2/2142 Squad Leader: Throwing in a small force with a jeep to cap a back flag. Done right, it's a game changer, a real monkey wrench into the plans of the enemy. However, it is important to recognize when it's not working, when you can't make it, and when to go somewhere else. A man's got to know his limitations, in other words. A couple nights ago, I was in a PAC squad on Sidi which tried to cap Power Gen. The theory is this throws the monkey wrench into the EU works. However, the map is not the terrain. Power Gen is overlooked by a hill and by the road, meaning APCs and tanks can fire with near impunity into the flag, while the transport strafes and infantry trickle in from the EU main. It is an untenable position for a PAC light infantry squad. Yet we kept trying. We lost a lot of tickets, and certainly did little to help the team. Certainly the EU team in question had no trouble winning the round.

The coup de main type missions do not work well on armor maps. There's too many tanks, there are airborne insertions, and the flags are wide open. A small force can hold Ruins on Camp Gib for a long, long time. Flags on armor maps are much harder for one squad to grab and hold. That doesn't mean it can't be done, but it is very difficult. Also, the umpteen legalized wallhacks DICE and EA have given us make it very hard to break contact and lie low while an enemy force leaves the flag unguarded. I spent many a minute in 1942 hiding while a tank moved on or enemy soldiers cleared the area. That's not possible in the brave new world of UAV, IDS, and Otus.

Seizing that crucial flag like Cerebere Command Center or EU Base in Camp Gib should not be overlooked. It is a great way to catch the enemy off guard and begin to dictate the terms of the battle. Just know when to double down your bets, and when to walk away. If your jeep is killed by motion mines and you see three or four guys walking around at the top of the hill on Cerebere, then hit South Town. If a Gunner Silver manages to wipe out your whole squad with a knife and a couple claymores because you bunched up, then give it another shot. Never be afraid to walk away, and know that sometimes the expected is unexpected, and vice versa.

I'm assuming that you know that the tide of battle in 2142 can and does change in a matter of seconds, all the time. Your Belgrade strategy is quaint, however, an EU force has a clear advantage on this map, PAC's proximity to the walker notwithstanding. All it requires is some thought on the part of the EU SL's. The walker at Statue, while in a good position, relatively speaking, is actually woefully useless there. It can prevent incoming troops, but can do little in terms of long range fire support. The Statue side of Playground has a myriad of boxes and low walls to hide behind, and Com Tower is entirely obscured by trees, a perfect hiding spot for engineers.

Should the APC move up to shell them, it is likely to get blown up faster than you can say "Oh s***", thanks to mines, Pilums, and Rorsch. Speaking of which, that Rorsch at Playground is in a perfect position to take out the elevated walker.

Also, while it seems to be a good idea to have the tank on the main road, its use there is limited at best, since it's firing lane is constrained to firing down towards Monorail. The tank is better employed on the hills overlooking Playground or Ruins, or the backside of these flags. It's mobility might be reduced, but it's lethality and support capability is magnified by the outrageous numbers of building chokepoints.

Lastly, EU has two excellent back flags, Playground and Monorail, both of which are defensible and adequately secure the area around them. PAC gets wide-open Pond, and death-trap Ruins, which comes equipped with possibly the most useless Rorsch ever to defile a map (the one at Roadblock on Cerbere comes in as a close second).

Napoleon wasn't an idiot... his maxim holds true in 2142 as well. Assemble a group of men and armor, and smack their weak point mercilessly. It will crumble. A dedicated squad plus a tank or APC can take Statue very easily. The flag has 7 approaches and only 3 of them are reasonably defendable at any given time.

Essentially, what I'm saying here is that while you made a few good points (esp about the effect of terrain) your example of Belgrade's Statue is somewhat poor, since the height of Statue is beneficial for infantry but disadvantageous for armor. Statue's importance is the walker spawn and the ability to hit 3 flags from it, not it's actual physical characteristics.