Mafia Wars is a Facebook game created by Zynga. It is a highly addictive and popular game where you build up your mafia family, buy real estate (and bully shop owners to pay you for “protection”), finish jobs for cash and experience and fight to become the Top Mafia.  There are currently 5 locations where you will handle business starting with New York, Bangkok,  Cuba, then to Moscow, and the newest edition is Las Vegas.  Each location requires adifferent strategy to master.  This guide will focus on starting and navigating though the game in hopes of helping you to develop a strategy to master the game.

OPENING CHALLENGES

Mafia Wars focuses on completing and mastering jobs with the purpose of increasing in money and levels to win the game.  So the game opens not with choosing which type of gangster you will be (there’s no avatar to build) but with a job.

Complete the jobs as they appear on your screen until you move up in levels and gain in experience.  Once you have gained in enough experience and completed several jobs the game will open up for more options.  You’ll be able to build a family, challenge other players to fights, purchase weapons and boosts, and purchase and maintain real estate.

BUILDING YOUR FAMILY

The best way to build your family quickly is by joining groups and requesting new friends. Type Mafia Wars into the Facebook search tab and narrow the selection by Groups.  There are many groups dedicated to increasing your family size and also several dedicated to tips and news.  A couple of the most popular pages for new friends are Big E’s Mafia Wars Add Group, and Mafia Wars Add Fast.  You can join these groups by “liking” the page and post a friend request on the wall.  Or you can start friending people with “Mafia Wars” written in the subject line of your request.

Building a large family will help you significantly in your fights. The larger the family, and the more skilled the members, the more likely you are to win in a fight.  Your family member size does matter in a fight so don’t challenge anyone whose family size outmatches yours.

If you are going to be a daily Mafia Wars  gamer I would suggest a special Facebook page dedicated to this game.  There are regular gifts to share with friends and if you have scores of people in your family then your news feed will be full of Mafia Wars updates and extras .

FREEBIES ON YOUR WALL

Check your wall regularly for all your family’s achievements that are shared. The more people in your family the more opportunities for great bonuses  but you also have to be quick – there are a limited number of rewards offered per posting.  You also may want to avoid cluttering up your friends walls with all your achievements.  Post only when there are free boosts or skill bonuses to share.

ALLOCATING SKILL POINTS

When you start playing you are given the following skills and will earn a total of 5 to spend each time you level-up.

1 Attack

1 Defense

100 Health

10 Energy

3 Stamina

Attack

Your attack skill has two main uses.  One, when you instigate an attack (either through a Fight, Robbing, or attempting a Hit), your total attack worth is measured against your defender’s total defense worth. Second, your attack worth also has a slight impact on the damage you cause during an attack or defense.

Defense

Defense appears to function in the same way as an attack except that it does not seem to have an effect on damage other than as a point of comparison to your opponent’s health.

Health

There are so many ways to refill your health meter that it is pointless to allocate additional skill points to its increase.  There is no limit to refilling your health but there is a charge.

Energy

Energy is your most important skill.  It is encouraged to allocate 40% of your skill points to energy.  Unless there are changes to increase the relevance of other skills Energy currently achieves more success in terms of money, items, and levels. Different jobs require more and more energy to complete.  So allocate those skill point bonuses to Energy.

Stamina

Your Stamina is used while fighting and in doing jobs.  The Stamina will restore at the same rate as your energy, 1 every 5 minutes. The best advice is to keep your stamina just high enough that you fully control the regeneration timer.

NAVIGATING GAME PAGES

While playing the game I found that there were so many game pages that I had difficulty finding my desired location.  There are so many activities it can be a bit overwhelming so here is a brief explanation of what can be found and where to find it.

HOME

News -  Limited Featured Items advertisement, mini game links, Travel mini game links, Daily Checklist, Player Updates, and your family’s Recent Activity.

Stats – View your States from any page.  At the top of the screen view your Cash, Health, Energy,  Stamina, and Experience.

Help – At the top of your screen there is also a Help menu.  You may contact the Zynga
support team, check game forums, and get information about game cards.

JOBS

Boss fight - Your boss fight is a practice fight.  Each
level offers a new boss to take on.  Stock up on your weaponry and assault your
current level boss to test your family’s strength.

Level Jobs – You must master each job before moving on to
the next level.  “Do Job” and accumulate all the weapons necessary to
move ahead.

FIGHT

Under the fights tab you have four additional tabs all
purposed to help you build skill.

Fight - Choose a fighter, or rival to attack.  Choose wisely, attack someone with a larger
family and more weapons and suffer serious hits to your energy and health.

Robbing - Steal from other peoples properties.  Bonuses are awarded for achieving all options.

Declare War - Declaring war is definitely a family affair. Your family is given 6 hours to come to the fight. Each member of your family will get only one attack, so make sure your family is stronger than your opponent before launching  an attack. At the end of the 6 hours the family with the most Top Mafia remaining wins the war.

Hit List-  On the Hit List page you can choose  to attack someone who has been listed.  To volunteer a player for the Hit List click on their name under the fight tab to open their Mafia Wars profile and select ”Add to Hit List.”

PROPERTIES

“Real estate development is a great way to make additional money without the Feds breathing down your neck.” Purchase properties to create an hourly income and upgrade to increase the worth of your property.

Upgrading
does increase the income of each property but some of the larger properties gain hourly income quicker than an upgraded lower property.  Save your money for the larger purchases to earn more profit.

INVENTORY

Under the inventory tab there are four sub-tabs.

Inventory (Mafia Store)

Under the first tab is the Inventory (Mafia Store) there are additional sub-tabs for the kind of loot you can purchase.

1. Weapons – purchase your common thug weaponry here.

2. Armor – buy body armor for extra protection.

3. Vehicles – purchase getaway cars, which are needed for most of your jobs.

4. Animals – under the animals tab you can purchase an animal for extra attack and defensive support.

Loot

On the Loot
page view the items you own already , add the ones you want to your wish list, and gift from your inventory to your family.

You may also share your wish list with your family by clicking on the Share Wish List button.

Collections & Vaults

Build a collection and be awarded special skills, items, or boosts.  There are enough collections to fill a guide of its own (with new ones being added all the time).  There are holiday collections, job specific collections, crew collections, level specific collections and much more.  The more level tiers opened the more collections there are to work towards completing.

With the exception of the Crew Collections, all collections can be completed by doing jobs on your own.  You can choose to focus on one
collections, like The Tools of the Trade collection, by completing robberies over and over until you have found all the items for that collection.

*Tip – If you are having trouble getting a specific item you can always put it on your Wish List and send out a plea to your family.

The Crew Collections are more difficult to complete than the others however.  They require your mafia’s assistance to complete.   Zynga offers several tips on how to complete a Crew Collection:

Asking for help -

1. You can only put out 1 request for 1 collection every 48
hours.

2. Up to 5 Mafia Members can help you on a single request
only.

3. Once a Mafia member decides to help you, they must have
the item drop from a random job.  They only have limited time to do so.

Helping your Mafia -

1. You cannot help more than 1 friend at one time.

2. On successfully helping, both you and the friend get the
item.

3. You can only help. up to 5 frie4nds in a 24 hour period.

Misc-

1. There is no re-vaulting of these collections.

2. You can ask for help once an item drops or straight from
the collections page.

3. New crew collections will be added in the future

Gifting

Under the gifting tab select items to send to your mafia
family.  You may choose gifts from three categories Collections, Loot and
Boosts.

*Tip – Often a family member may post requests from their
wish list.  Send gifts according to their list and help them complete a
collection.

MARKETPLACE

The Marketplace is where to go to purchase boosts, limited
items, and bundles, special loot, and to purchase more reward points.  You can
also redeem your game cards or promotional codes here.

PROFILE

(Your Character)

Check your stats, allocate skill points, and view your
completed collections on the Profile tab.  You may also view your weapon
inventory and check your Finances for each location.

Achievements

View your mini game achievements per locations under the
Achievements tab.

Crime Spree

The Crime Spree page is new to Mafia Wars.  It is a quick
link to accept all the challenges and gifts from your family members that has
been sent to your notifications page.  You may also start your own crime spree
and send out the request to your family members.

MY MAFIA

Recruit

View your current mafia family and your family requests on
the My Mafia page.  You may also see which of your friends have began to play
the game so that you can send out family requests to them.  Check your mafia’s
strength and confirm who has not responded to your family member requests.

My Mafia

View your mafia members stats, offer promotions and send
them gifts.

Free Gifts

View special, limited, and rare items to your family members
from the Free Gifts tab.

*Tip – giving items to your friends will increase the power
of your mafia.

Mafia Wars is constantly evolving.