Mafia War SecretsIntroductionThere’s something exciting and romantic about the lifestyle of major
organized crime, as manifested by the success of mob movies such
as The Godfather. The enticement of easy money, lots of power, and
living on the edge of the law has spawned many successful video
games.
I’m not sure any of them rival the power of Mafia Wars by Zynga in
recent times. The explosion of social networking websites,
specifically Myspace and Facebook has made it possible for many
software companies to make a fortune by creating free, addictive
games that people share with one another on these sites.
If you aren’t already playing "Mafia Wars" then you are missing out
on a free way to have a lot of fun and make a lot of friends. It doesn’t
cost a dime to play and once you’re involved in the game you’ll enjoy
it so much you won’t ever want to stop.
I personally prefer playing Mafia Wars on Facebook. I will shortly
be creating a new Facebook account for us all to join mafias together
and play the game from the start again.
-Dominique Donati
Growing Your Mafia
Initially, this seems like the hardest part unless you’re really
experienced with these kinds of games or ‘applications’ on social
networking sites. To go out and recruit people into your mafia
quickly and successfully, follow the steps here and your mafia will
be huge in no time.
Method #1) Invite all your existing network friends to play. This
is easy because the application has a built-in feature to do this,
however, it’s limited because the application needs to cooperate
with the social network website and not spam.
To overcome the limitations imposed by the built-in feature of the
application, you need to get your recruiting link and go out and
invite your friends individually. This will actually bring MORE of
your friends into your mafia than by using the automated features.
Take a minute and craft your personalized invitation message for
your friends. Tell them that even if they don’t want to play, you
benefit by them simply accepting the invitation. You want your
mafia to be huge in numbers so even the people who never use
applications but accept to be in your mafia will speed the game
along for you. Some of the least expected friends can turn into your
strongest mafia bosses so invite everybody.
Send your personalized invitation via the private message feature.
Don’t try to send to everybody too fast because you don’t want
Myspace or Facebook to kick in its anti-spam defenses. Send a
message every few minutes until you’ve invited your best friends.
Try to pick the most active members first as they’ll be most likely to
accept and play the game with you.
Method #2) Use forums to recruit super players
In Mafia Wars, you need at least six players in your mafia who are
totally addicted to the game and will reach the higher levels. These
are the players you want to put into your ‘top mafia’ by promoting
them to be your wheelman, your safecracker, etc. When you
promote players who are further along in the game, you get bigger
rewards in jobs and fights.
To find these people, go to the "Apps" directory on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/apps/In the Search Applications box, enter ‘Mafia Wars’. The first and
best one is #1 by Zynga, the one we’re talking about in this report.
Go ahead and click it. It will take you to the application’s home page.
What’s interesting is that there is a discussion board on this page.
It’s where you’ll see people asking and answering questions about
the game. It’s a good place to hang out if you have doubts, but the
best part is that this is where players post to recruit members into
their mafia.
What you do is add all of these people who are posting for more
mafia members to your own mafia. You add them as a friend and I
recommend you include a personal message at the time of
adding saying something like "for mafia wars" or just paste your
recruiting link in there so they know you’re not a stalker and want
to play the game with them. There’s no limit to how much you can
do this, and it’s the fastest way to build a supercharged mafia.
It’s important to recruit early in the game because the best way to
get cash flow going (in order to get stronger weapons and vehicles)
is to buy "Mafia Mike’s" property. It’s cheap and offers awesome
cash flow. You need it in order to get those Tommy Guns necessary
for completing jobs and defending yourself. Recruit like crazy and
your mafia will be gigantic. The limit at the time of this writing is
500, but you can get there quickly by using this forum recruiting
tactic ALONE!!!
Do both adding people from the forum and post your own little ad
for recruiting. You can also post in the ‘Review’ section but tell
people to add you as a friend to invite to the game since the review
section doesn’t allow you to post your recruiting link. The comment
section does though so feel free to post it there at least once a day,
maybe even once every four or five hours even since there are so
many postings there.
Method #3) Use other social sites to recruit existing players.
If you’re playing on Myspace, go to Facebook to recruit players into
your Myspace mafia, and if you’re playing on Facebook, look for the
players on Myspace to recruit into your Facebook mafia. The app
also runs on Yahoo, so look for players using the Yahoo version.
One thing you can do is create a free blog about your personal
‘mafia’ experiences. Go to
http://blogger.com and create a blog
dedicated exclusively to your mafia. Write on it daily at first, and be
sure to include ‘keywords’ related to mafia wars that will help other
players find your blog. You should customize your blog sidebar to
display your recruiting link prominently.
If you don’t know what to blog about, just Google some info about
mafia wars and you’ll be able to get ideas.
DIRTY TRICK: Write up a blog post about "Mafia Wars Cheats" and
tell people they’ll get a bonus by adding you to their mafia. I’ve seen
other people doing this and while they aren’t winning any real
friends, they sure have big mafias…
I’ve seen similar methods using video sites like YouTube and
Metacafe as well. These are people who promise players a hidden
bonus if they add such-and-such person to their mafia. It’s not very
honest unless you give some of your collection items to these
people, in which case it’s completely honest and I encourage you to
make those kinds of promises. Otherwise, just make Mafia Wars
Cheat Secrets or something like that the title of your video to get
views but just refer people to your blog or recruiting link.
You can also use Twitter to recruit on automatic pilot. What you do
is go to
http://tweetlater.com and create a free account. You will
also already need an active Twitter account to use this. What you do
is once you’ve created your account, go to "Manage My Scheduled
Tweets and Twitter Account Automation." Click the box that says
"Auto Welcome" and enter either your blogger blog or your mafia
recruiting link into the message box. It can only be 120 characters so
consider a URL shortening site like
http://tinyurl.com to make the
recruiting URL small enough that you can still add a little blurb of
text inviting. Remind people they have to add you as a friend too!
You can do searches on Twitter so search for mafia wars and start
adding all the people who have anything to say about it. TweetLater
will automatically send your recruiting message to the people that
follow you back. You can do this to hundreds of Twitter users each
day, but don’t go overboard because Twitter also has anti-spam
measures built-in to prevent users from abusing the service. Create
multiple Twitter accounts if you want, you only need one
TweetLater account for multiple Twitter accounts though.
Preparing Your Mafia
If you’ve done a good job recruiting members into your mafia, you
should have at least six very experienced players who are very far
along in the game. You want to make these super players your ‘top
mafia’ members. If you go to the My Mafia section in the game, you
should see places to promote six members of your mafia into top
positions that give you bonuses.
This section will vary greatly depending on who’s in your mafia. If
you’re lucky you will be able to fill all six positions with highranking
members that will give you good bonuses.
If you didn’t do so well in recruiting (impossible if you follow the
steps I’ve outlined) then there won’t be many bonuses you can get,
but focus on the bonuses that will at least give you a little more cash.
It’s a good idea to send gifts to your mafia, especially to your top
players. It’s good criminal etiquette. You’ll need to pull a bunch of
jobs before you have anything to give them, however, remember to
send a gift to these members when you get something interesting in
your collection.
How to Use Godfather Reward Points
When you first get started in mafia wars, you’ll have Godfather
Reward Points. The tendency for new players is to spend them
quickly. DON’T DO IT!!!!!
Godfather points are very difficult to obtain unless you’re willing to
pay real money. They are occasionally given in the game, but usually
to obtain more, you are required to buy them with cash or buy
related products or offers.
You can score some more Godfather reward points easily by
browsing through the offers to find the ones that require very little
money (like $1.39) or are completely free. There aren’t very many,
but there are some. Be attentive browse the offers to find them.
Never waste your Godfather points on:
– Money (you can always get it in fights and jobs)
– Restore Health (you can always go to the hospital)
– Stamina (this recharges quickly)
– Family Members (my recruiting methods are great)
–
DO use Godfather points on:
– Energy Refills (once you’ve built up your total energy points)
– Crates (sometimes it’s the best way to get certain items)
– New name (it’s the only way, if you get a bad rep just change)
– Skill Points (these are permanent and worth getting)
Getting Going on Jobs
As you start out as a street thug, you’ll see that energy goes fast and
you need a lot of tools to run your crime organization. Use your
profile points at first to go all toward your energy. In the initial
stages of the game there is almost no fighting so put everything
you’ve got initially into boosting the amount of energy you have.
Go to your inventory and pick up the basic weapons you’ll need. The
required tools are displayed on the same line as the job and when
an item is red it means you either don’t have it or need more of that
particular item to do the job. Go ahead and buy everything you
need to start those jobs except for maybe the motorcycle to pull the
‘Rob a Pimp’ job. You can save that one for last if you prefer because
the motorcycle has upkeep and we haven’t talked about optimizing
your cash flow yet.
Do the jobs that cost more energy first. If you want to build up some
cash faster, pull the job ‘Collect on a Loan’ because it pays high and
the energy cost is very low. Don’t waste your high energy on the
small jobs like mugging, save that for when your energy has all run
out and it recharges little by little. Then pull the small jobs.
Focus on just one job at a time as much as possible until you’ve
mastered it. Once you master a job you’re given bonus points which
you can use to get more energy for more jobs.
It’s entirely up to you how many point you allocate to energy. You
don’t need to get more stamina for fights because it recharges fast
and all fights only cost 1 stamina, but energy costs are high so you
need a lot of it.
Once you master all the jobs in a section, the jobs will restart at the
next level. So you’ll need to redo all the jobs again to remaster at the
higher level.
As you do jobs, you’ll pick up lots of goodies and bonuses. This is the
good thing about doing a bunch of jobs before jumping into fights.
Save the fights until you’ve got a sizeable mafia and some good
weapons and defenses in place.
Avoid the temptation for revenge while you’re running jobs.
Sometimes you’ll be attacked. Let it go while you build your mafia’s
business stronger. Become strong first and then you can pick on
weaker mafias all day long.
I’ve broken down the jobs, the tools you’ll need, and the loot they
give. This is your reference guide to always know exactly which job
you need to do in order to get certain loot.
Street Thug (Level 1-4)
To do all the Thug jobs you’ll need 1 Pistol, 1 Crowbar, 1 Sawed Off
Shotgun, 1 Machine Pistol, 1 Baseball Bat, and 1 Motorcycle.
The loot you’ll acquire:
.22 Pistol – Beat Up Rival Gangster
9mm Semi-Automatic – Rob A Pimp
Associate (Level 5-8)
To do all the Associate jobs you’ll need 1 Crowbar, 2 Colt Pistols, 2
Sawed Off Shotguns, 3 Tommy Guns, 1 Bullet-Proof Vest, 3 Sedans, 1
Armored Sedan, 1 Delivery Truck, and 1 Motorcycle.
The loot you’ll acquire:
Butterfly Knife – Collect Protection Money
Brass Knuckles – Rough Up Dealers
Tactical Shotgun – Perform a Hit
.45 Revolver – Take Out A Rouge Cop
Soldier (Level 9-12)
To do all the Soldier jobs you’ll need 1 Bullet Proof Vest, 2 Tactical
Shotguns, 4 Machine Pistols, 1 Chain Gun, 4 Tommy Guns, 3 Sedans,
2 Armored Sedans, and 4 Motorcycles.
The loot you’ll acquire:
C-4 – Destroy Enemy Mob Hideout
Stab-Proof Vest – Kill A Protected Snitch
Automatic Rifle – Bust a Made Man Out of Prison
Semi-Automatic Shotgun – Fight a Haitian Gang
Lucky Shamrock Medallion – Clip the Irish Mob’s Local Enforcer
Firebomb – Steal a Tanker Truck
Enforcer (Level 13-17)
To do all the Enforcer jobs you’ll need 10 Grenades, 2 .45 Colt
Revolvers, 2 Chain Guns, 10 Tommy Guns, 4 Firebombs, 3 Bullet
Proof Vests, 1 Sedan, 2 Armored Sedans, 2 Luxury Town Cars, 3
Getaway Cruisers, and 2 Delivery Trucks. You will also need to run
the preparation jobs to get Cards, Liquor, Tokens (Poker Chips), and
Wire Tap Devices. The items acquired in preparation jobs can only
be used once in a job, so you’ll need to do the preparation jobs
frequently to do the big ones.
The loot you’ll acquire:
Armored Truck – Smuggle Across The Border
Concealable Camera/ Computer Set Up/ Untraceable Phone –
Rob and Electronics Store
Hitman (Level 18-24)
To do all the Hitman jobs you’ll need 15 Chain Guns, 10 Grenades, 5
Machine Pistols, 5 Body Armors, 3 Armored Sedans, 4 Luxury Town
Cars, and 10 Getaway Cruisers. You’ll need to repeatedly run
preparation jobs from now on to get loot drops in order to get the
other items you’ll need, the concealable camera and telephone
wiretap devices.
The loot you’ll acquire:
Grenade Launcher – Repel the Yakuza
.50 Caliber Rifle – Disrupt Rival Smuggling Ring
Armored Car – Invade Tong-Controlled Neighborhood
RPG Launcher – Sell Guns to Russian Mob
Bodyguards – Protect Your City Against A Rival Family
Night Vision Goggles – Assassinate A Political Figure
Napalm Attack – Exterminate a Rival Family
Blackmail Photos – Obtain Compromising Photos
Capo (Level 25-34)
To do all the Capo jobs you’ll need 15 Chain Guns, 5 Automatic
Rifles, 4 Semi-Automatic Shotguns, 1 Tactical Shotgun, 4 Tommy
Guns, 1 .45 Colt Revolver, 15 Body Armors, 2 Night Vision Goggles, 2
Body Guards, 2 Untraceable Cell Phones, 4 Motorcycles, 4 Armored
Trucks, 5 Luxury Town Cars, and 4 Getaway Cruisers. You’ll need to
repeatedly run preparation jobs to get loot drops in order to get the
other items you’ll need.
The loot you’ll acquire:
Prop Plane – Steal An Air Freight Delivery
Harley Davidson – Run a Biker Gang Out Of Town
Illegal Transaction Records – Steal Bank Records
Consigliere (Level 35-59)
To do all the Consigliere jobs you’ll need Blackmail Photos, 5
Delivery Trucks, 4 Semi-Automatic Shotguns, 2 Speed Boats, 1
Hacksaw, 1 Prop Plane, 5 Automatic Rifles, Untraceable Cell Phones,
Illegal Transaction Records, 2 .22 Pistols, 10 Chain Guns, 2 .50
Caliber Rifles, 2 Night Vision Goggles, 2 Body Guards, 10 Luxury
Town Cars, and 2 Grenade Launchers. You’ll need to repeatedly run
preparation jobs to get loot drops in order to get the other items
you’ll need.
The loot you’ll acquire:
Luxury Yacht – Influence a Harbor Official
Porsche 911 – Ransom a Businessman’s Kids
Bookie’s Holdout Pistol – Fix the Big Game
Underboss (Level 60-99)
To do all the Underboss jobs you’ll need Computer Set Ups, 6
Armored Trucks, 20 Chain Guns, 2 Humvees, 6 Automatic Rifles,
Untraceable Cell Phones, Illegal Transaction Records, 12 Body
Armors, 4 Luxury Town Cars, 4 Getaway Cruisers, 4 Armored Cars, 1
AR-15 Assault Rifle, and 4 Grenade Launchers. You’ll need to
repeatedly run preparation jobs to get loot drops in order to get the
other items you’ll need.
The loot you’ll acquire:
Humvee – Break Into the Armory
AR-15 Assault Rifle – Rip Off the Armenian Mob
As you pick up items such as poker chips and cards, be sure to hang
on to them. Don’t waste your energy pulling the little jobs all the
time. When you have lots of energy, pull the big energy jobs first and
then do the little ones later. The big ones give you more experience
and you’ll be able to recharge your energy quicker by advancing a
level.
Creating Strong Cash Flow
There’s no competition for cash flow properties. You need to build
your mafia big so you can get your hands on as many ‘Mafia Mike’s’
bars as you can during the early phases of the game. These are
cheap and give more cash flow than buying any of the other smaller
properties. The only thing you need for more bars is a bigger mafia,
so keep the recruiting up on a daily basis. You’ll need them to
guarantee the upkeep of your vehicles and heavy weapons which
are required for the bigger jobs.
Recruit constantly to your mafia and keep buying bars to keep up
with your numbers. You should quickly be able to have a cash flow
of over $200,000. Bars are also great because they don’t require
protection from robbing. It’s a good idea to make bars the base of
your property dealings and only get into the bigger hotels and
casinos once you’re bringing in millions in cash flow AND have a
strong enough mafia to repel heists.
It’s not a good idea to sit around on a lot of cash. Always put it to
work for you. If you just sit on it, you can lose a lot of it in a fight and
your hard work will go to other mafias. Always buy property in bulk
when you can to get it at the lower price. You pay more 1 by 1.
Doing big jobs will bring in lots of money very fast. Reinvest it
quickly into property. That’s good business. Instead of looking at the
money, invest it into making you MORE money without having to
work for it in jobs or fights.
I don’t recommend buying ANY rent houses or Italian restaurants.
The cash flow is too little. Focus on bars until you can afford hotels
and casinos. Remember the movie The Godfather? Did you ever see
Al Pacino and the Corleone family worried about rent houses or
restaurants? No way, because it’s not good cash flow. Hotels and
casinos is where the big money’s at. They’re expensive to protect, so
don’t lighten up just because you got the properties.
Once you have a large mafia and lots of good defensive loot, go
ahead and go for casinos and hotels, but until then make do with
empty property and Mafia Mike’s bars. There will be plenty of time
for the big hotels/casinos later.
Winning More Fights
Winning fights is a brutal way to run your entire business. I would
never recommend focusing your entire mafia’s force on fighting
until after you’ve built a huge mafia and mastered the higher levels.
After that, you can have all the fun you want taking out hits for
bounty or just picking on the weaker mafias for fun or cash.
Your ability to win fights depends on how big your mafia is and how
well equipped you and the other members are in comparison to the
opposing mafia, and a little luck. The luck factor is minimal, but it
exists to help keep things a little more balanced.
If you intend to be a major fighter, you will want to use your profile
point on health and stamina. Your attack and defense aren’t very
important because it’s a lot easier to boost those stats with a lot of
equipment and strong mafia members. It won’t hurt you to boost
your attack and defense stats occasionally when you master a level
and only get one bonus point. It’s not enough to considerably boost
your health or stamina (requires two points) so in those cases you
can use the points on those stats.
In the early stages of the game, there will be a lot of underequipped
and inexperienced newbies (n00bs) that you’ll be able to pick on.
They won’t know half the secrets and tips you now know, so if you
want to have some fun taking out the ‘little fish’ then use money on
getting lots of weapons and armor for your mafia to use.
Here’s how to almost guarantee that you’ll win a fight:
1. If the opposing mafia is smaller than yours
2. If the opposing mafia is a higher ‘rank’ than you at the same
level of play. This means that player is pulling lots of jobs and
not doing many fights. This is an easy way to identify the
mafias you can overpower – and the good part is that they’ll
have money and items for you to take.
3. If the opposing mafia has an overall losing record of fights. If
your enemy has lost 2/3 or more of his/her total fights, that
player hasn’t figured out yet how to win consistently and you
should be able to beat them easily.
Before attacking a player, click on the player’s profile. See what
kind of weapons and armor they have. If your opponent appears
to be carrying a lot more weaponry that your mafia, you may
want to pick a different victim.
You want to have lots of weapons available for your mafia
members to use so buy the cheap effective weapons like grenades
and hacksaws that have no upkeep. Eventually you’ll need
Tommy guns and other heavy weapons to pull jobs so always be
attentive to picking up the best tools as soon as you can.
The biggest key to winning more fights is to have a strong
defense. You can usually get this with some of the mid-level loot
items. My favorites are Bodyguards, Night Vision Goggles, and
Prop Planes. I recommend getting as many prop planes as
possible. The defensive power of prop planes is extremely high
and having a lot of them will keep you from losing fights and
getting killed in fights.
Since the new elements of Gifting have been introduced to the
game, you can request to have people send you prop planes. Most
people don’t like them and will happily send them.
A word on Collections: They are fun to get but don’t kill yourself
trying to get all of the items for the collections because once
vaulted, the bonuses aren’t that impressive. Here are the bonuses
you get from vaulting the collections:
Diamond Flush Collection (Street Thug Tier) +1 Energy
Heart Flush Collection (Associate Tier) +5 Health
Sculptures Collection (Soldier Tier) +3 Defense
Poker Chips Collection (Soldier Tier) +2 Attack
Club Flush Collection (Soldier Tier) +3 Attack
Cigars Collection (Enforcer Tier) +2 Energy
Spade Flush Collection (Enforcer Tier) +2 Stamina
Rings Collection (Hitman Tier) +5 Defense
Ties Collection (Hitman Tier) +6 Defense
Paintings Collection (Capo Tier) +6 Energy
Cufflinks Collection (Capo Tier) +10 Health
Race Horses Collection (Consigliere Tier) +7 Energy
Conclusion
Mafia Wars is a fun an ever-evolving game. As such, this information
could become outdated. It’s important for you to remain on the
update email list so that whenever there are changes or more tips
and tricks available that you’ll be able to receive them.
If you aren’t on the update list,
dhym 