I’ve been abusing BF2 for a few weeks now, so I thought I’d post some stuff. There’s such a wealth of knowledge to be unlocked over time, it would take forever to compile it all. Many things you discover through playing.

Obviously, this is a work in progress and is just my personal opinion. Some of this has changed since patch v1.20 has been released in February 2006. More of it has changed since patch v1.30 came out. For example you can now drop vehicles in addition to supplies.

Unlocks

If you’re new to the game, you’ll find if you gain points over time you will eventually gain rank. As you rank, you gain the ability to unlock a single upgraded weapon for each class. Viewpoints vary widely as to which first or second unlock is best. Ultimately it depends on your play style since each unlock is for a specific class.

I unlocked the L85 first and the G36C second. I find the Spec Ops’ G36C bests the Medic’s L85, even though the former is unscoped. I find I get more hits at range with the former than the latter, although the scope on the L85 lets you hit targets even farther. Within the G36C’s range, I find it bests the L85. In close combat I find the L85 a bit less effective, since dualing it out scoped in is rather challenging versus the G36C’s iron sights.

When it comes to close range firepower, I find the DAO beats out the Pancor Jackhammer. Again, which you choose first depends on which of Antitank and Engineer you play and whether you play either at all. The DAO fires more rounds, twelve, versus the Pancor’s seven. Plus, you can stop reloading the DAO by switching to another weapon, then complete reloading later. The Pancor is an all or nothing affair. If you get interrupted while reloading, you have to start again, if you survive.

Unlocks, BF2:SF

If you purchase Special Forces, third level locks are available after you play a full round on a Special Forces map. If you then load classic BF2, you should be presented with several unlocks. Seven are available, plus two each time you level thereafter.

The best third level unlock is probably the G36E. It’s brutal and accurate, even at long distances. For sniping, the L86A1 is superior. While the M95 allows you to shoot down choppers by killing pilots, when was the last time that actually happened? In twelve months, I’ve done it myself only once.

Often Antitank is necessary. The P90 finally enables the Antitank class to engage in medium range combat. The P90 sports a huge 50 round clip which is expended rapidly and decent accuracy at a medium range.

For the rest, I’m not overly excited. The F2000 finally gives American assault a fully automatic assault rifle with a grenade launcher. The SCAR-L is a decent scoped rifle, but I still have a slight preference for the G36C. There isn’t much to say about the MP7. At the range its effective at, I’d prefer a pump action shotgun. The MP7 wins over the Pancor except in close range combat against more than one tango. Last, the MG36 is a decent choice over other support weapons. It takes a while to overheat, sports a three round mode of operation, and reloads extremely quickly. Accuracy is wanton, though, so stick to close or medium range in an unexposed position.

Classics

After 12 months, I have come to know and love the stock weapons.

The AK47 is a serious power hitter. If you’re playing China, you can put someone down fast with the AK47. It’s one of the highest damage assault weapons you can field. Its accuracy declines rapidly with increased range.

The pump action shotguns should not be underestimated. Both the American and Chinese pump actions sport identical damage. Two solid hits will take down most opponents.

Tactics

Battlefield 2 offers a variety of tactics to players.

Ultimately, the objective of the player varies. You might be playing to win a round, own everyone and ignore the outcome of the round entirely, earn a particular badge, ribbon, or medal, or score the most points. Each of these objectives is not necessarily in conflict with the others, though sometimes that’s the case.

General Tactics

To be an effective player in general, there are a variety of things you can do.

Always spot. Spotting is one of the most effective tasks you can perform. By spotting, you make an enemy soldier, vehicle, or air asset appear on the mini map for other players. Such information is invaluable. If you have to choose between spotting and shooting a soldier to stay alive, own the soldier. If it’s an armor asset, vehicle, or air asset, spot away, and especially if you’re caught and about to get killed anyway.

Do not fire a support weapon while in a vehicle unless you are being fired upon. Firing support weapons on APCs, armor, helicopters, boats, and so fourth only gives away your position by muzzle flash and by sound. When trying to land on the Wake Island map, for example, it’s silly to give away your position and allow your boat to be destroyed before you even reach shore. Of course, feel free to fire if an Antitank soldier is about to fire upon your vehicle, for example, but firing off randomly into the air is generally a bad idea.

Don’t leave vehicles idle. Often on maps I find idle vehicles, even sometimes armor and APCs. Given that such vehicles can easily provide a five or ten to one kill ratio, it’s best to employ such assets to your teams advantage if you’re a skilled driver. Of course, if you’re not, train on an empty server some first so you don’t put the asset to waste. If you’re having trouble taking down soldiers with armor, you need to train on for a bit first.

Watch the map for disappearing vehicles, jets, helicopters, armor, and APCs. On your mini map, you will notice grey assets are not currently in possession by your teammates. Red, obviously, are assets being driven by your opposition. Various other colors coincide with your teammates using said assets. In either case, the key is when an idle vehicle disappears. When that happens, an enemy has just jumped into a stationary asset and drove or flew off with it. You can use such information to determine where your enemy is and whether a flag is defended or not even if your commander has not played a UAV in orbit of your objective.

Do not throw down Medic health bags or Support ammo bags when you are trying to covertly capture a flag. Bags are side neutral and the enemy can see your bags. Where ammo and health bags are, generally players can be found as well. Don’t give your position away unless necessary. You can, however, switch to the ammo bag or medic bag respectively and hold it near friendly teammates to resupply and heal your teammates without giving away your position. Do this.

Revive your Squad Leader. Each Squad Leader is a mobile spawn point, as long as at least one objective remains in your team’s hands. You should revive Squad Leaders at all costs when possible. If you are not a Medic, but either your Squad Leader is or one has died nearby, pickup the closest Medic kit and revive your Squad Leader!

Don’t sit in a Stinger. Active ground to air stations are visible to air assets. You are simply placing a large bullseye on yourself. Instead, man the station and pan the view to where you expect your target to appear, then unman the station. If you lined up correctly, you can target the air asset as it leaves, from behind. Firing missiles off wildly has little effect. Instead, you must wait for full lock on to occur. When engaging an enemy helicopter, wait until its guns are pointed away before manning the Stinger again. If you don’t score a kill, unman the station. The missiles will reload even when it’s unmanned. Then, jump in again and fire away.

Don’t fire needlessly. When you fire at nothing, your muzzle flash can give away your precise location for a sniper to pick you off. Especially on maps like Karkand, just because you can’t see anyone in the dust doesn’t mean a sniper isn’t waiting for you to open up with your support weapon.

Class Tactics — Engineer

As an engineer, you can repair friendly vehicles and place mines.

Any vehicle you ride in or drive instantly becomes a mobile repair station. You will repair friendly vehicles within range. As such, it’s valuable for you to travel around, in a jeep or APC, or armor asset in close proximity to another friendly vehicle that’s engaging the enemy. If the friendly vehicle has an Engineer in it, you will mutually repair each other. Tag teaming armor is a great way to capture flags.

While the value of mines has diminished due to their visibility in 1.03, you can still effectively take out vehicles with them using a couple tricks. First, you can blow up mines with an explosive round or grenade. As an Engineer, you can toss a mine next to an occupied enemy vehicle and then blow it up with a grenade. It’s a sure kill and far more effective than trying to place a mine near the vehicles tracks or wheels in front and rear to ensure a kill.

Additionally, you can also toss a mine on top of armor and APCs so they blow themselves up when they shoot. Practice a bit, first. You can also leave mines inside humvees and vodniks and they will explode when someone jumps in the vehicle to drive away. You will find it has a great entertainment value, too.

As of 1.20, you can no longer throw mines by jumping. As such, the tactical advantage of engaging a tank offensive with a tank as an engineer is greatly diminished. You can still drop them and grenade them. The arming sequence is too lengthy, so it isn’t possible to drop a mine and jump before it’s deployed as you can with a grenade to get around the weapons fire while jumping being disabled in v1.20.

When laying mines for ambush, be sure to not wall friendly vehicles in such a way that it’s not possible to leave. You will find you receive fewer punishes for teamkills if you allow friendly drivers out. If you place your mines on the descending side of hills and inclines or on grassy patches, enemy vehicles will be far less likely to notice and blow up your mines with grenades or explosive shell fire. Conversely, you will find friendly drivers more likely to drive over your stealthily placed mines and you may receive more punishes. It’s a tradeoff. It’s best to deploy mines only when you have solid intel regarding an incoming vehicle.

As of 1.21 or 1.3 you can no longer grenade mines. So, you will have to make due with merely dropping them in tactical locations, like next to bushes, tall grasses, or in shallow pools of water. Fortunately, friendlies can no longer trigger your mines, so you will receive fewer TKs. You will receive a TK if an exploding vehicle kills someone on your team, though.

Class Tactics — Medic

As a Medic, you have the ability to revive critically wounded teammates and heal injuries.

When you ride in a vehicle, that vehicle becomes a mobile healing station. Friendly troops within range are automatically healed, making close in support from an APC or armor valuable.

As a Medic, you can either operate as part of a squad or entirely independently. As you can heal yourself, you can engage in prolonged combat, recover, and engage again. When operating independently, it’s best to use stealth to achieve objectives to minimize engagements with the opposition.

However, a Medic’s most valuable skill is reviving and healing teammates to allow an attack to continue. As such, a good approach is to maintain some distance from the enemy and revive only when you won’t be killed doing so. Revived soldiers are not immune to attack and can be killed immediately. Therefore, you must either clear the area of attackers or wait for danger to pass.

Only drop Medic bags when the enemy is already aware of your location. Otherwise, switch to the Medic bag and hold it close to teammates to heal them without revealing your location.

It’s possible to revive a fallen comrade with the paddles without actually laying on top of him. There can be a short distance between your paddles and the teammate you wish to revive. This enables you to revive teammates partially exposed around corners without taking fire. What’s more, you can revive a teammate after the revive icon disappears. In fact, you can revive a teammate right up until his body disappears. The only exception is a soldier killed by artillery or rockets or bodies partially stuck inside objects . Try to revive as long as possible unless there’s a more suitable candidate to revive and you’re drawing fire.

Class Tactics — Antitank

As Antitank, your singular task is the harassment and elimination of enemy hard and soft targets, tanks, APCs, jeeps, helocopters, attack choppers, and so forth.

It certainly takes some practice to be extremely effective as Antitank. When you zoom with your anti-tank launcher, place the center over the target. If the target is armor or an APC, a warning klaxon is now sounding inside the vehicle. At this point, you are harassing the vehicle. An inexpensed tanker will probably stop and move in the opposite direction and pop smoke.

Of course, your objective is the complete elimination of the threat. If you see a resupply crate near the vehicle, make that your primary target. You absolutely must destroy the resupply crate. It is impossible to destroy armor by yourself without neutralizing the supply crate.

Once you’ve handled the resupply crate, you can concentrate on the armor. If the tanker or APC driver is good, the area is already being sprayed heavily. Ensure you spot the hard target so teammates can either evacuate the area or spawn as Antitank and assist. Next, locate a position that isn’t obvious and counterattack.

When firing, you do not need line of sight once the rocket has left the tube. You can immediately duck while keeping the missile tracked on target. You will need to move the circle, while still zoomed in, over where you think the target is after you have ducked. If you were fast enough, the tanker has no idea where you are and may be firing nervously.

Move to another position, preferably one where you can duck and hide as before, and repeat the process. If no such position exists, reload and fire again as quickly as possible. You need to keep the heat on as long as possible. Armor generally requires three or four hits. An APC may eject soldiers to flank your position, so be careful.

If a tank or APC is abandoned, do not destroy it. Kill the occupant and drive off with it. The longer you keep it, the longer the enemy team is short a tank or APC.

You are not helpless against attack choppers. You can and absolutely must engage. There is no warning klaxon when you lightup an attack chopper, so engage with courage. Choppers are a challenging target to hit, as they have and will fully utilize 720 degrees of freedom. The most common situation is a circling chopper, firing relentlessly at targets on the ground. While a Support class can pelt it with fire, only an anti-tank round can force a withdrawl or in a more ideal situation, destruction of the attack chopper completely.

Practice is key when engaging moving helicopters. You will probably have to lead the target, unless it is stationary and you are quite fortunate. It is best to be away from buildings and vehicles to avoid splash damage from machine gun fire. Ideally, stake out a position behind or below the anticipated flight path. If the helicopter is circling rapidly, as it probably will be, you have to wait for the most opportune moment to fire. A single hit scored will send notice pilots away in a hurry or, rarely, kill the gunner. An experienced pilot will circle around and kill you. Thus, it’s difficult to completely eliminate a threatening helicopter individually, but not impossible; in either case you have to try, and keep at it, as there is no greater threat than a circling attack chopper pinning down your entire team.

Make each round count, you only get five.

Play as Squad Leader

In Battlefield 2, you can create a squad of which you are the leader. As Squad Leader, you can issue orders to members of your squad which will appear on each member’s tactical map, be it attack, defend, move, or some other order. As most players do not have a mic, you can use these orders to your advantage to direct members of your squad if you do not have voice chat capabilities.

As Squad Leader, your most valuable asset is the ability for other squad members to spawn on your location when they die. As a mobile spawn point, it’s more valuable for you to remain unseen so dead squad members can respawn at your location than to press on an attack. Staying alive is quite valuable.

Additionally, you can call in an Artillery Strike, request a UAV, or request a Supply Drop from the commander, if your team’s commander accepts your request.

Play as Commander

Battlefield 2 offers a whole different world of play when you apply to be your team’s commander. Initially, it may seem somewhat overwhelming, but your available options are many.

The commander has several tools at his disposal.

First, and arguably most valuable, is the Scan feature. Recharging rapidly, Scanning shows the locations of all enemy units on the entire map briefly, except stationary Covert Ops. You can then right click on each unit and perform a spotting action, making the enemy solider or asset visible to your entire team. The information is also useful for determining which flags are in danger of capture, where best to place artillery attacks, and where deploy the UAV.

Second, is the UAV feature. The UAV, while active in a particular area, makes visible all enemy soldiers and assets, except stationary Covert Ops. During the duration the UAV is active the enemy will be continuously spotted. The benefits of enemy locations being provided to your team is probably obvious.

Third, you can employ Artillery strikes against enemy forces. Artilly takes a while to recharge and has a limited area effective. Artillery strikes are most effective when performed in locations with high enemy troop concentrations and few or no friendly forces. Artillery is leathal for soliders, light vehicles, and often APCs. Tanks are only vunerable to direct hits and are generally untouched by an Artillery strike. Additionally, low flying helicopters can be destroyed as well.

Finally, you can drop a Suppy Crate, which is a multipurpose crate. It can heal, repair, and resupply friendly soldiers, ground, and air assets and provide cover for soldiers when dropped near choke points. The Supply Crate can be destroyed by enemy grenades and explosive ammunition, however. Additionally, it can repair commander assets, namely the UAV Trailer, Satellite Trailer, and Artillery that have been destroyed by the opposing team. When a friendly Engineer is unavailable to repair destroyed commander assets, the Supply Crate is the only method for repairing these assets. The enemy cannot prevent you from delivering Supply Crates through the destruction of any commander asset.

Additionally, you can issue orders to Squad Leaders, which they can then accept or reject. When playing on a public server, issuing orders may not have much of an effect. Sometimes, however, you may find a Squad Leader who is willing to cooperate with your orders. Issuing orders to such squads based on your top down view of the battlefield may prove valuable.

Update, August 9th 2006. I’ve been playing on and off for about a year now, but I haven’t spent any time updating this. Certainly it’s more fun to play than it is to write. I still mostly play Medic. I play Assault the least. I finally bought the expansion for the improved guns and haven’t used a second level unlock in three months. The G36E is definitely a high scorer and my personal favorite along with the L86A1 sniper rifle. The MP7 gets honorable mention for Engineer.