Pagoda Map Strategy

By J.N. Cobb

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 continues the franchise's excellent online multiplayer component. There are more than a dozen cooperative and competitive online game modes and eight maps (with more soon to come as downloadable content) to test your mettle. One of the best (and one of the first you'll unlock in the single-player campaign) is Pagoda, a deceptively peaceful and serene location that features flowing streams, winding paths, and a spectacular multi-story pagoda. The landscaping and the architecture may have been designed for peaceful contemplation, but they're also well-suited to the kind of intense firefights Ghost Recon players have come to know and love.

This serene scene is anything but peaceful.

Places to Go
The Pagoda layout punishes anyone who tries to simply run and gun—there's too much good cover to ignore and too many good places for an ambush-minded enemy to hide. Between the broken carts, overturned tables, and column-heavy architecture, you have no shortage of places to stop, look, and listen before you charge ahead. Pay extra attention on the bridge in the middle of the village or when you go up either of the twin sets of stairs just beyond the bridge—these landmarks are set up so that you can't easily see what's waiting at the other end, especially if you're crouched. You could easily not see a waiting enemy until your entire body is in his line of fire. Also, make sure you note the location of each doorway in each part of the map, because there are plenty and they aren't always where you think they might be. If you think the AI exploits these multiple ways in and out, wait until you go up against your fellow gamers.

Sniping spots are not as hard to come by as you might think. There are no towers or cliffs to climb, but you can use the natural rise and fall of the hilly landscape to get a bead on the action below. If you're on offense during a siege game on Pagoda, try staying in the jungle beyond the two entrances to the pagoda itself. There's a long ridge about halfway between the wall of the pagoda and the virtual limits of the map. There's very little cover between you and the doorway, so watch for return fire, but you'll also have a clear shot down into the ground level of the pagoda (near the bell). In fact, a good sniper can exploit the view from outside any of the entrances to the central pagoda site—each doorway gives you a decent range of targets inside the structure, even allowing you to pick off soldiers who are defending other doorways with their back or sides to you.

Close-quarter combat, indoors and out.

Things to Do
For games like Last Man Standing and Seek and Destroy, where the enemy has to come to you, don't forget that the jungle extends east of the pagoda itself and west beyond the bridge you demolished in the single-player mission. If you need a place to make a stand, head to these outdoor sites, find some cover, and put your back to the edge of the map. When they come looking for you, there's no other way to reach you except straight through your kill zone. The area west of the bridge is especially good for this, as you're sitting pretty at the end of a long, narrow alley.

Grenades are a great equalizer when you don't know what's on the other side of a corner, bridge, or hill. Loft one on top of or behind where you think the enemy is, and move into position once you hear the boom. If the explosion or the shrapnel doesn't get 'em, you can open fire while they're still trying to figure out where the threat is coming from.

Snipers need position, practice, and patience.

The Pagoda map for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 features different kinds of environmental challenges for every kind of player. Whether you're part of a clan or going solo, you'll need all of your skills to exploit the terrain and bring home a win.