Starting out

Compilation of tips/tricks (found in the internet, some info can be outdated but its a good read):


"So you’ve started Mafia Wars and you’re not sure where to start,
well, the first choice is easy enough: Pick a “Maniac” class. While
earning more cash or health might seem appealing, energy is what
allows you to do quests and it is significantly better to earn both
cash and experience instead of just one. That said, it’s time to get
down to business.


DO NOT add to you mafia right away. Yes, you do want a large
mafia to be stronger, but if you are ill-prepared, this is going to
hurt more than help. Essentially, you want to have a “Mafia Mikes”
and a “Bloody Chainsaw” (please note, that the bloody chainsaw is a
special item bought from the home page and will periodically
change. For all intents and purposes, the special item tends to have
similar stats, and is often interchangeable if the chainsaw is gone)
for every two members. Here’s the thing though, the game bases
the amount of members you need for another one of these items
based on your current members. So say you bought a chainsaw with
a mafia of 12, but then added 8 people, you’ll now need 22
members to buy another one, thus losing out the extra chainsaws
you could have bought at 16, 18, and 20 members.

Assuming that you are now equipping properly, it is time to spend some
experience points.
Ideally, you want to put all of your points into energy so you can
level faster. Since quests are going to be your primary source of
experience and cash (hence why you used maniac), your limiting
factor is how fast your energy recharges. Furthermore, energy
resets every level, so having an high energy and a fast regeneration
can get you to higher levels exponentially faster. Of course, you will
want other stats eventually (when that is, is completely up to you),
but this will give you a nice start.

Okay, so now you’re leveling at a nice pace and you’re getting those
Mafia Mikes and Bloody Chainsaws when you should. What’s next?
Why, equipping your mafia of course, and this can be done either
via looting or buying. In general, it is better to loot in higher
missions, but if you want to be safer, just buy, and if you’ve been
doing what’s been said so far, money shouldn’t be a serious issue.
The recommended equipment is as follows (once you can buy them
of course):

Weapons: Bloody Chainsaws should be available to half your mafia
(since you’ve been buying them every two members right?), thus the
other half should utilize the Chain Guns (.50 Caliber Rifle is better
once you start looting).

Armor: Body Armor all around – period. Yes, you can buy other stuff
too, but this is a definite purchase.

Cars: Secondary to armor and weapons, but if you must have one,
the Towncar comes recommended.
This should be more than enough to get you started on the right
track in Mafia Wars. However, before things get wrapped up, here
are some other interesting tips found around the web that should
work for both the MySpace and Facebook versions of the game.

Avoid the Hitlist as best as possible. While it might be fun at higher levels, drawing attention to yourself at lower levels is just going to
get you killed over and over again by high level players. Stay under
the radar as long as you can.

If you ever attack someone and get the maximum amount of cash
($70,000), bookmark them and attack them as often as possible.
When you do start using other stats besides energy, it is best to
keep attack and defense equal.

(MySpace Version) More Energy – Send an energy pack to a friend
along with the message, then go to your MySpace page and click on
the link (the image) and you will send one to yourself.
(MySpace Version) Beat the Bank 10% – Annoying, but if you deposit
$9 at a time you will beat the system.



Best Early Cash & Experience Jobs:

o Level 1 – 4: Auto Theft
o Level 5 – 8: Bank Heist
o Level 9 – 12: Museum Break In
o Level 13 – 17: Wiretap the Cops

Best of luck, and happy gaming.




Mafia Wars Strategy Guide – Get on that Top Mafia List!

A lot of the basic strategy in mafia wars depends on how you use Skill Points
toward Attack, Defense, Energy, Health, and Stamina. These are the basic
strategies depending on how you wish to play the game. These are basic
guidelines, and most people will find that they will use a combination of these
strategies.
LevelerThis is the most popular strategy by far and it will allow you to level up
faster. Simply put all skill points into energy and then do lots of jobs. Doing
jobs with a high experience to energy ratio will speed up the process and allow
you to level faster. The best jobs for high experience to energy ratios are as
follows:

Street Thug Tier: Auto Theft (1.33 ratio)

Associate Tier: Bank Heist (1.77 ratio)

Soldier Tier: Museum Break-In (1.5 ratio)

Enforcer Tier: Run Illegal Poker Game, Manufacture Tokens, Get Cheating Deck (1.83 ratio)
Note: The Run Illegal Poker Game Job requires 20 Tokens and 20 Cards each time it is done,
Therefore this three job cycle is the best ratio on the enforcer tier. The burn
down a tenement and federal reserve raids both give a 1.5 ratio without needing Preparatory Jobs.

Hitman Tier: Protect your City against a Rival Family, Assassinate a Political Figure (1.77 Ratio)
Note: Both of these jobs have the same experience to energy ratios and do not have to be done together.

Capo Tier: Whack a Rival Crew Leader (1.68 ratio)

Consigliere Tier: Steal an Arms Shipment (1.82 ratio)

Underboss Tier: Order a Hit on a Public Official (1.96 ratio)
Note: This job requires an Untraceable Cell Phone each time it is done. The best job
without consumable loot is Muscle in on a Triad Operation with a 1.87 ratio.

Boss Tier: Travel to the Old Country (1.978 ratio)
Note: this is the last job currently available. Settle a Beef… Permanently has a 1.972 ratio and is the first boss job
available.

All of these ratios were computed by taking the experience gained from the job
and dividing it by the energy required for the job. Also these ratios were
calculated with an 11% more experience bonus and a 10% less energy bonus
from top mafia. I would suggest getting those bonuses as high as possible by
promoting strong players into the Mastermind and Wheelman Top Mafia
positions. So your ratios may be a bit different from mine, but these jobs should
still be the best ratios regardless of your bonuses. I would also work on getting
The Consigliere Tier level three mastered because you will get a 30 second reduction on the energy regeneration timer and the Boss Tier level three mastered because you will get double energy regeneration. Be warned though,
the Boss Tier level three mastery will take quite awhile because of the extremely
low job mastery percentages per job (1-2% per job).



Fighter:

This strategy will help you win more fights. The basic strategy is to add
skill points to attack and defense equally. You will be stronger with 50 points on
attack and 50 points on defense than with 75 points on attack and 25 points on
defense or vice versa. Since there are other factors in winning fights you will
also need to pay attention to things other than skill points. Mafia size is very
important, you will need to have 501+ mafia members. As you build up your
mafia you should also keep up with items. You can use one weapon, one armor,
and one vehicle per mafia member. The best items for fighting are the chain gun
as a weapon (The bonus weapon is better than the chain gun and is unlocked at
level 99), Body Armor for armor, and towncar for vehicles. Those are the best
items that can be bought, but there are many loot items that are better. Just
remember that the game will automatically pick the best weapons, armor, and
vehicles that you have available with a preference for looted items.
As you build up a strong character you should also build up some stamina so
you can put that strength to good use. There is no way that you can know if you
will win or lose when attacking someone else, but there are some ways to make
sure you’ll win most of the fights you start. Attacking characters with smaller
mafias than yours will usually result in a win. If no smaller mafias are available
on your fight list then you can click on each character on your fight list and look
at their number of fights won and number of fights lost. If this ratio is low you
will probably win the fight. As far as health goes, that’s up to you. The only
advantage of high health is being able to max out on the hitlist, which will be
discussed in another post.
So those are the two main strategies for Skill Point usage. Strong players use
both of these strategies to become well rounded players. Using one or the other
or both is entirely up to how you wish to play the game, but I would suggest
spreading out the skill points between energy, attack, and defense so you can
level up pretty well and get a good fight record.



How to Get More Random Loot in the Mob Game:

Mafia Wars secrets revealed about acquiring random loot in order to complete
jobs requiring special items.
Facebook Mafia War players are constantly on a quest to acquire more money,
power, weapons and the randomly dropped special loot items. Often, special
looted items are required to perform jobs. Frustration soon ensues because
there is no visible way of knowing how to get that random loot drops. Until now
that is. The Mob bosses have revealed Mafia War secrets for adding items to the
family bounty.

Through hours of play a listing of jobs that have random loot drops and what
that loot is has been compiled. Doing the job may not always result in the loot
being dropped on the first time, but what is listed is what was consistently
dropped for the noted job.




Random Loot Drops:

Jobs that advertise random loot drops are useful for acquiring necessary
weapons or other specialty items needed for other jobs and hits. This listing of
jobs and associated random loot drops should be a great asset in further
advancement in the mafia world.

This list is set up with the loot that is dropped followed by the job that is done
to acquire it.

Stab-Proof Vest - Kill A Protected Snitch

Bodyguards - Protect Your City Against A Rival Family

Night Vision Goggles - Assassinate A Political Figure

Armored Truck - Smuggle Across The Border

Armored Car - Invade Tong-Controlled Neighborhood

Bullet-Proof Bentley - Win 20,000 Chips In Mafia Wars Poker

.22 Pistol - Beat Up Rival Gangster

Butterfly Knife - Collect Protection Money

Brass Knuckles - Rough Up Dealers

9mm Semi-Automatic - Rob A Pimp

.45 Revolver - Take Out A Rouge Cop

Tactical Shotgun - Perform a Hit

C-4 - Destroy Enemy Mon Hideout

Automatic Rifle - Bust a Made Man Out of Prison

Semi-Automatic Shotgun - Fight a Haitian Gang

Grenade Launcher - Repel the Yakuza

.50 Caliber Rifle - Disrupt Rival Smuggling Ring

RGP Launcher - Sell Guns to Russian Mob

Napalm Attack - Exterminate a Rival Family

Keep in mind that doing a job does not always insure that loot will be dropped.
Sometimes the job has to be done more than one time.



Special Loot Offers:

The Godfather also offers special loot on occasion. If this is the case, it will be
on the homepage and will list the requirements. Sometimes is will cost money
other times it is offered in exchange for Reward Points, which don’t accumulate
very fast during play but can be purchased if desired.



Winning Loot:

In addition to random loot drops and offerings from the Godfather, loot can also
be taken during fights. At the end of the fight in the summary section you will
see how much money was won, how many experience points were gained and if
loot was dropped or taken it will be listed as well.

Mafia family members can also bring in loot from fights when fighting alongside
their mafia boss. A description of who brought it, what was brought and who
they took it from will show up on the fight summary screen.

Loot is very valuable in Mafia Wars. Sometimes it is won through fights,
sometimes it is rewarded by the Godfather and sometimes it is picked up during
jobs as random finds. However it is obtained, it is necessary to have in order to
accomplish higher level jobs. Knowing the secrets to finding loot can mean the
difference between moving up or being left behind. Secrets to Advancing Facebook Mobs

Facebook Mafia War cheats are often strategies for advancing in the game and
making a stronger, wealthier mob. Strategies include growing the mob family
and wealth.

For every computer game available, on-line or offline, there are secret codes or
cheats to get players ahead in the game quickly. Google "Facebook Mafia War
cheats" and the reader will be rewarded with a barrage of sites claiming to have
the secret cheats or codes.

There are some scripts out there to automate a few actions of the game. One
script touts that it automatically sends friend invites to players in the fight
window. It may or may not work all the time. Players can advance faster by
strategical play instead of hunting cheats.



Grow the Family:

In Mafia Wars, players form mob families by inviting other Facebook members to
join. The more family members a mob has, the stronger they are. The first and
ultimately most important key to advancing is to keep the mob family growing.
This can be done in a couple of ways:

Players invite all of their friends to join
Link to other players on one of the many ‘add me’ pages in FB, thousand of
players network on these pages
Reciprocate when players join their mob family – Mafia War players can be
members of more than one mob.


Family Defense:

Family members need to be able to defend themselves. It is up to the Boss to
make sure each team member has defensive tools. As the family accumulates wealth, the boss should make sure each member has weapons, vehicles, etc.

Initially, funds will be low, the Boss should focus on growing wealth in order to
take care of family
As wealth is accumulated, Boss should purchase each member of family more
weapons



Increase the Wealth:

Each Mob Boss will have different strategies for accumulating wealth. Some
families focus on more jobs and payouts while other families are more involved
in property acquisitions. These strategy tips will help increase the family wealth
regardless of the ultimate goal:

In the early levels of game play, purchase properties with a low investment cost
and decent return rate. Mafia Mike’s Delis are an excellent choice; however, the
number available for purchase is dependent on the number of family members.
As the money increases purchase high end properties – the key is to purchase as
many as possible at one time. Once a purchase is made, the price increases for
the next purchase.
Beware of the upkeep cost of some high end weapons and vehicles. Make sure
money flow is sufficient to cover the costs.



Using Points Strategically:

With each level up, players are given reward points by the Godfather. These can
be used to increase a variety of attributes, such as attack, defense, energy and
more. Where to apply these points depends on the Mafia Boss’ strategy.

Knocking off rivals and going for kills: this strategy requires using reward points
to increase attack, defense, and stamina attributes. This allows the player to
knock off other mobs and engage in more fights while staying strong
themselves.
Money Accumulation: this strategy requires putting most reward points into the energy level. Energy enables the family to do more jobs, thus acquiring more
money.
Mafia War players also have the option of buying reward points from the
Godfather, if they so choose. Additionally, there are often special weapons or
incentives available that can only be purchased with reward points."

Hope you guys enjoyed the read, the oldschool players know this, but is good to remember some things and for the newcomers to have a some info to how to start. ^^

Thanks for this Guide!