How i do it

05/28/10

My Tips for Face Book Games by Zinga

Mafia Wars

Mafia Wars was the first Zinga game I played on Facebook. I took to the game very fast. I liked it because I could play for about 15 or 20 minutes, then it was over until I came back the next day to play again.

I'm currently a level 566 and I have been playing for about a year now. When I first started a friend told me to put all of my experience points into "Attack" & "Defense", so I could have the power to win fights. When I started this friend was a level 155. I was more interested in clearing each level and moving on. So I put most of my experience into "Energy". Now my friend is a level 583 & I'm at 566.

Over time I have put quite a bit of energy into Attack & Defense, but for the most part I have put it in Energy. Maybe once a week I'll put 5 points on both Energy and Defense.

Currently my stats are:

• Attack:     414

• Defense:   414

• Health:     165

• Energy:     2452

• Stamina:   85

You will see that my Attack & Defense are equal. I believe I loose more fights when these two numbers are not the same.

Each day I do things. Some I do every day, and others I only do when I have time or want to do a little extra.

Every day I do the following in this order...

1. Fight until I need to go to the hospital.

2. Collect money from businesses

3. Do current job.

4. Deposit money into bank, unless I need to buy item for next level.

I choose to fight until I can't fight anymore for one reason. Once my character can no longer fight, I can't be robbed when I have all the money from the businesses and from the jobs on the table. It's a real bummer when you have a lot of money, then you realize you have been attacked and lost lots of your $.

As I played New York, I bought as many businesses as I could. I would buy the properties by the 10's. It's a good idea to have a large income in New York. I can pay all of the hospital bills from NY and never worry about running out of money. It's not a good idea to heal your character in any other city except New York. The reason is because you need all the money you earn in Cuba to pass the levels and buy the businesses.

The same thing goes for Moscow. Twice during Moscow I had to pay the God Father to get enough money to continue playing. If I hadn't done that It would have taken me like 2 extra weeks to collect the money I needed to buy the items I needed to start the next job.

Finances in New York:

• Income:                  $260,992,400

• Upkeep:                    -$2,130,340

• Cash Flow:              $258,862,060

• Current Balance: $430,545,085,812

I have ramped up my Stamina some along with my health. I use these sometimes to get a few more experience. This can help push me over to the next level sometimes. Now more than before, I have to fight a lot to get very much experience. I don't spend much time now doing this, but I have in the past.

For many many months I leveled up twice every day. Because I got behind on my experience by putting the points on Attack & Defense, now I level twice every day and a half.

The way I do this is to make sure I don't use the energy pack until I have leveled up on my own, and pushed the experience bar half way across, by using all me energy. It's when I'm about to level up and I'm out of energy, where I use the stamina.

Like I said I only play with my character below 20 on health. So when I reach the point where I need a little more energy, I go to New York and heal my character, Then I go back to, in this case, Moscow and fight more to gain those few experience I need to level.

When I fight I try to only fight people whose mafia team size is just above my mine or below. This ensures, for the most part, I will win the fight.