Mafia Wars is developed and created for Zynga in many flavors, commonly Facebook, Tagged, MySpace and Bebo. The objective is to be the highest earners and surviving the corporate underworld.
First off you set a name for yourself. Making sure you like that name is important as changing the name is very costly, about $5 for 21points which will eventually cost you 15points to change the name. Ensure it's no more than 15 characters otherwise it will be truncated and special ANSI characters will act funny. If you don't select one, then you get to have Default Don or Don Your-Surname. The points mentioned here are called God Father points or GF for short. Offensive names will get you whacked consistently by the offending groups like religions and races or profanities. If Zynga did not catch you, the Mafia will. With every hit you lost, you loose money and 6 experience points when you die (Get snuffed in a fight) as a result of depleted health.
There are 3 types of characters in the play area: MOGUL, MANIAC and FEARLESS. Mogul gets money earned faster (54 minutes or 10% off the timer) as compared to the rest, and Maniac and Fearless gets their Health and Stamina recharged quicker in terms of time. In actual fact, instead of 5 minutes, they get refilled every 3 minutes or so (correct as of Sept 09 with Beta 10 Moscow Pre-Release) so think it well as YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE TYPE later on.
In the early stages, MONEY is the core of everything but when reaching levels 120 and above, the need of quick energy recharge is essential and if you tend to get into clan wars, fearless is a good option. Moguls only get their money returned quicker if they have enough properties to return the rent or investment to, and in real fact, the job "Make Arrangements for a Visiting Don" yield US$57 million. It was previously $55-92 million but curbed to stem the flow of bad money making too many Trillionaires in the market.
Now back to the core basics.There are a few aspects that are crucial to the game, your stats, your size and your power. In any real life triad, the more mafia you have, the stronger you get, and in this case, the stronger you are, the better your mafia and the more powerful your arsenal and defenses, the better you stand in the bout.
The new systems display you best weapons and defences against any intruder or team of professional robbers. Every member is equipped with a weapon, a vehicle and defensive armor against anybody and you are limited to use the most powerful 501 friends as your compadre in the fight with another clan or member.
You can buy standard issue weapons in the inventory store. A weapon from Cuba or anywhere else (Moscow, Asia, West Coast, Somalia) and sometimes a special edition is offered if you meet the criterion like number of mafia members or 25 GF points. Special weapons which bear great strength can be won by purchasing the Special Crates for 20 GF Points each or 3 for 55 GF Points. Some weapons like the Humvee is a drop loot weapon that you get out of doing a job and others upon completing the job tier or mastery.
Some items are needed to complete a job like illegal transaction records, or untraceable cellphone or hidden camera or the Computer Setup. The odds of getting one is about 18% overall but during special runs , they are very scarce especially there is a holiday drop loot session. It is far easier to play than Vampires Game which drop loots are so hard to earn. Thus why for that reason Zynga sells them for GF Points.
Health is replenished every 5 minutes but you can buy them using currency, ie: Dollars or Pesos or whatever the locality is. It's cheaper to do it in New York as the dollar is easily gained by clicking on your Home->Feeds->Mafia Wars and clicking on Get the Bonus when your friend level up or did something great like putting someone into the morgue. Each time gains you $100,000 and for 1000 health at level 300 would cost you about $350,000 compared to C$187,500 which is so hard to earn as you get smacked as much as 80% on bribes (tip: the highest job El-Cacique job Take Over The Havana Reconstruction yields net amount is C$1300).
Each job cost you some energy. You can't replenish them except getting a discount on jobs with some boosts you receive from your friends or clicking on their tab when they level up (-16 experience [ XP ] points) or a full refill with either 10 GF points and if you are very popular, an Energy Pack which refills and ups your energy to 125% of your stats. Remember to increase those states before you release your energy pack as it's a ONCE A DAY thing.
On good jobs over the Level 100, it yields a return of 200% on what is used up, and so the ease of leveling up is at least 1.5 times a day. Leveling up 2 levels earn you a Godfather point, along with the occasional give away of 5 to 10 points on the Fan Club monthly giveaway.
In fighting another Mafia...there are many options, someone in your own bracket, the Hit list (or put someone on the list if they hit you and you can't retaliate for $10,000) or Declare War with your own friends to settle the feud. In itself, they cost you stamina and injuries will cost you health points. You stand to win some money too. Another aspect is robbery. Robbing an opponent casino yields cash and put salt to their injuries. Like in fighting, you can get injured if you are not powerful enough. The attack and defence stats will let you know the standard calculation, so try to boost your team with the best defence and offense.
The bank allows you to save your money for a 10% fee, but it's a safe way to ensure if a series of robberies and hits will not knock your finances out, especially when you are still a newbie. For old timers and experts, placing $300 TRILLION is nothing to us as each hit can only cost us $100,000 and is really no big a deal.
This article will be leapfrogged and edited to reflect the latest installation of the module: MOSCOW! Many have said this is another headache similar to what happened overnight with Vampire Wars but we will see how the new wave will go about.
Have fun is what it's all about.