Update: The strategy has changed a great deal and the first item on the list is not accurate. The developers of Mafia Wars seek to make the game not fun anymore and therefore the amount of time you need to invest has risen a great deal. It might still be fun, but it will take a while to get what you need and to get through all of the missions. Happy hunting!
Cheating is not the way to win a game, sure automated tools might enable you to “play” the game without actually having to spend the time to do so. The problem is that if you are going to do that, then why play at all? You don’t get anything by doing so, there is no end movie to enjoy. No prestige that will be given. If you are going to play the game, then play the game.
- Put all skill points to energy.
This has been mentioned on many Mafia Wars strategy guides and well, I knew that before I even started. The key is that a well balanced player is looking at longer game play and sometimes that is great. However, if you want to get ahead quickly and the game allows for it, then it is better to put your skill in a few “powerful” skills than evenly distributed.
The problem is that you are going to be attacked and lose money, but the thing is that, of course, others need the experience gained from attacking. The key is to put your money in the bank or purchase weapons and inventory when you need them as quickly as possible.
If you can get to the point where you level every time you run out of energy then the game will breeze by and people will wonder how you did it. “Simple, I just thought logically on the best way to ‘win’.”
- Better use of reward points is to purchase skill points.
The sad truth is that you are going to have to spend a lot of money to get enough rare items from boxes. I tried it, realized that I could have spent that to buy skill points instead and would have been able to level a great deal faster. Well, the game has to make its money, and if you want to enjoy the game, then go for it, but if you just want to get it out of your system, then the best way to level is to put all of your reward points to skill points.
- Earn reward points by signing up to Netflix’s, Gamefly, Travian, and other reputable companies.
Most of the reward points services are going to rip you off or going to be impossibly difficult to complete. Don’t go for something that will probably go for your credit card and then continuous charge you for a service you aren’t going to need with extremely difficult opt-out procedures.
I’m not saying that all of the companies are scams, but well, if you don’t know or trust the company, then don’t go for it. Netflix and Gamefly are useful services, in that there is value to them. If you were going to get them anyway, then what better reason than to get a 200+ reward points. I would follow rule 2, but buying a few boxes for the hell of it never hurt anyone and you might get lucky. Just don’t put more than a few in to it and put almost all to buying skill points.
- Join Mafia Wars mafia enrollment groups.
Who has 500 real life friends on face book? I don’t. I’m sure that most of you don’t either. By joining a group like this you can get the 501 famed mafia to protect and allow you to offset the missing attack and defense skill points. I will advise that you do not join the so called free Godfather reward points groups, because I suspect foul play.
Well, this could be termed “cheating,” but since it seems to almost be sanctioned by the developers, I will say that it is free game and exists in the gray area for the time being until the Mafia Wars terms of use is updated to prevent it.
- Put strong players in your top mafia.
It will take a few weeks to get the max amount you can have in your mafia for attacking and defense. Doing so will capture some high level players to help you decrease the costs of energy to do jobs and increase the energy from doing jobs. This will enable the game to go much faster. Eventually, if you timed it right, you’ll be at a high enough level for others to want to place you in their top mafia and this will help you out to further your chances at leveling quickly.
- Do Cuba as soon as you can.
Cuba gives you a great deal more energy, at almost double the energy costs at 10% for wheelman and 10% for mastermind, will be at higher ratios, for the max of the two. Doing this, will allow you to quickly “beat” the Cuba tiers and gain not only skill points to put towards energy, but also defense and attack bonuses and powerful weapons for attacking.
After doing these, you should be at a level to do the jobs at similar levels in the New York job tiers. The problem with these is that the underboss and boss job tiers are very time consuming to complete and will require going back to the old job tiers to get the items necessary to complete the last two.
- Don’t Add too many friends in a single day.
There is a slight problem with rule #4, in that Facebook likes to cancel accounts that add too many friends in a single day. Facebook thinks you are a scammer, bot, whatever and will close your account. If you are going to do rule #4, then be careful. Be careful with your privacy settings, so make sure that your email, address, and most settings about you are private to no one, so that you don’t have some mysterious guy showing up one day with a chainsaw (there are some real crazies out there, only a few with chainsaws that want to cut down trees). The other is only add a few more than allowed in Mafia Wars per day or week. There isn’t a few point to spend all of your time trying to get members in your mafia.
If it takes a month to get 501 mafia members then great. It beats spending 23 hours trying to get 501 in a single day and then having Facebook close your account in a week.
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Jacob,
I appreciate your honest and sincere tips. I just happen to wander to this site. I have been through a lot of garbage of tips and tricks and I just was looking for some honest good advise. It sounds like you have gone through some of the same frustrations I have been going thru.
Aguie
Well, some of these, I thought of myself and others I’ve found on other sites. The problem is that you have to do a lot of searching to find what to do. Well, actually, I wish I would have put all of my skill points to energy and choose Fearless, but meh, sometimes playing a little longer doesn’t hurt either.
I have been using all my Godfather points for energy refill. Is that the right way to move ahead?
I will say that it is not wise to waste Godfather points on energy refill, if you are close to leveling anyway. In that case, it isn’t worth it and could either be saved until later or used for the skill points. I went ahead and tried it, because the points made towards using them for skill points, make a great deal of sense. Well, at the time at least. Now I think it is really up to your style of play and how often you play. I think the point made was that, it takes 2 levels to get one Godfather point, so using it for one time level gain of 5 points is kind of a waste. Skill points are a bit more useful, but I contend that there are disadvantages as well.
The advantages of using Godfather points for energy refill is that you can do more jobs and should be able to level and get 5 skill points. The disadvantages is that you aren’t going to use the entire energy, unless you don’t have enough energy, and the rest will go to waste. Afterwards, you aren’t going to be able to level again, so you’ll be stuck again with 10 godfather points need to do it again. With Godfather points, the advantage is that when you finally level, you basically get 9 skill points, the 4 from the Godfather points spent on skill points. However, it won’t get to the next level. It is more useful, I believe if you either purchase Godfather points or received them from buying external services. In which case, you can buy your skill points external of doing jobs and leveling. In this way, it is entirely possible to have far more energy points than what your level would normally allow.
I believe that having far greater energy points than what you require to level is rather pointless. My only conclusion is to take my advice, as well as any others with this regard to how you spend your Godfather points with a grain of salt and see how it works for you. Hell, if my advice works, then good for you, but if you are happy with what you are doing, then I will only suggest that you keep doing it as it appears to be working. If it isn’t, then attempt something new. Part of gaming is the experience.
–NOTE TO READERS–
Just like MOST of the other blogs out there about Mafia Wars, the author of this blog thinks the object of the game is to be the highest level. That is not the object of the game at all. The object of the game is obtaining power. Power to fend off your enemies and power to attack whoever you choose. Earning big money is a secondary goal, and your level just assigns a title to your character (which you don’t necessarily have to choose). Once you reach a legitimate level 50+ then the money almost becomes pointless as you really don’t need it for upkeep. All you can do with a high level is brag to your friends about it. If you have a Porsche 911 TT but it has no engine, then what is there really to brag about?
If you neglect other aspects of the game then you are going to wind up being high level straw man that can be pushed around by legitimate players, and your only option will be to bully low level players, who will ultimately will turn to their legitimate high level friends who will come smash your face in the dirt. And then you’ll just be a little wuss and put hits on people because you have no power to do anything. These are typically the people that whine to everyone that they are being picked upon.
I guess one of the problems with this game is that it is that it is not spelled out clearly what the object of the game is, so you get people such as the author that think if you are the highest level then you are winning, when that is not necessarily the case. Sure you ultimately want to reach a high level so you can get a title, but who cares if you have a great title and are getting pushed around.
Well, the objective of the game is different to other people. For me, it was to get past all of the jobs and teirs and “finish” the game as quickly as possible. If you have being hit by other members, then you should build your mafia, it will take care of it far better than attack or defense points. Trust me, I’m level 324 with 1914 energy, and around 50 attack and defense points. With 164 mafia, I have no problem attacking people and people attacking me, like you’ve said becomes pointless as I make more money from properties than anyone can reasonably take away.
Well, if you are playing on Facebook, then you will not have any problem finding enough members to get the “max” mafia members (I don’t buy in to the 1000+ mafia as it is pointless and Facebook tends to ban people who too quickly add “friends”). If you are playing Mafia Wars on MySpace where it is a bit more difficult to find people temporary join your mafia, then yeah, I’d say it pays to add a little bit more to the attack and defense after you’ve finished all of the jobs.
Alas, I never said anything about getting the highest level. I mentioned power leveling, which is something differently. The point to quickly complete all of the tiers is to ensure that you have enough energy with perhaps stamina that by the time you run out of energy, you level. This will allow you to get to an extremely high level fairly quickly (took about five weeks to get to level 324). If you play it like you say, then sure, you can beat people down without having a large mafia, but it takes a great deal longer to complete the jobs and get the extra features that will make the game more enjoyable.
As with any RPG, you are going to have the people who want to spend the time soaking up the world, the culture, the story, while exploring. Others want to get the game over with while just briefly passing over the story. Those people will power level by applying their stats to a specific set. The others, well, they don’t do either and don’t know how to do either. Well, okay, Mafia Wars, isn’t exactly like a console RPG, but the concepts are similar.
If you wish to get Mafia Wars over as soon as possible, you can either complete the jobs as quickly as possible (albeit power leveling) or just not play period.
i think jacob you made a very clear explanation with regards boosting your energy as to quickly finish all the job tiers…and i definitely agreed..this is also what im doing right now… for me completing all the tiers both in NY and cuba… reaching your mafia into 500 (and i did in 2 weeks time) and also completing all the achievements and vaulting as well… with all of these.. for me i feel like i finish the game already…and besides i dare you to reach level 18,ooo as the mafia wars max level (accdg to wikianswer, not sure also)
That is fine. If you want to own me, then go ahead. I have money in the bank, that it matters not.
Get a life dude, its ppl like you who ruins the game. You take it far too seriously. Have you ever opened the door in the last few weeks, or are you stuck in your virtual world?
Dude, people have different styles of play, what I specified is one of them. I believe I stated that in the post, so I think you are confusing “beating someone’s ass” with “winning.” In the literally sense, Mafia Wars is about beating people’s asses, however, the better way is to build your mafia (for protection and attack) and get to the high level.
At which point, leveling up is easy and you can put your points to attack and defense. It just doesn’t make sense to do so until you’ve finished all of the jobs (you know where you get the most money and experience).
The point is that I’ve was able to get to level 400 in about a month and a half. Others who followed this guideline or something damn close to it, will be able to get to level 400 in a quarter of that time.
It is also not a concern for me to be attacked or robbed, because I make more than enough doing jobs and from properties to pay it all off. Plus, if I feel that I want to defend myself, I will just grow my mafia a bit more.
You have some really good advice, but WOW! 50 attack/defense points?! We’ve been playing entirely different methods! I started out using my points= 3 for energy and 1 and 1 for defense/attack. Now that I’m 305 MasterBoss and finished everything the game has become a little boring. My energy is in the low 500′s but my def/att are 660 each. The only time I lose a fight w/ someone below level 450 is usually because those stupid critical hits! Not sure of the reasoning of that. My point? (If there is one) Is to enjoy the game and don’t become one of those people that take this crap too seriously!
P.S. Can i get your link, I’d like to rob you!
I’ve talked to a bit more people who are becoming “experts” with the game and well, after a while, it is a very good idea to stop putting all of your points to energy. I think the sweet spot is around 2000, where you should start putting points to attack and defense.