Mafia Wars Tips and Strategy

1. Why does Top Mafia say "Not Available"? Or, Why can't I promote someone to Wheelman/Buttonman/Bagman?

To promote someone to Wheelman, they must be the Fearless character type. To promote someone to Buttonman, they must be the Maniac character

type. To promote someone to Bagman, they must be the Mogul character type. You can see a person's character type on your "My Mafia" page:



When someone is ineligible for a certain position because of their character type, you will see --% under the "New Bonus" category, and it will say

"Not Available" instead of showing the Promote button. Everyone will have at least 2 jobs that they cannot be promoted to.

* Maniacs cannot be a Wheelman or Bagman
* Moguls cannot be Wheelman or Buttonman
* Fearless cannot be Bagman or Buttonman

For example, I'm a Maniac type. If you tried to promote me, you would see:



Note how I cannot be promoted to Wheelman or Bagman, since I'm a Maniac.

2. When should I start adding people to my mafia? Should I avoid having a big mafia early on?

Start adding people right away. Get to 501 mafia as soon as you possibly can. There's no downside to having a large mafia, even if it's not fully equipped. An unequipped mafia may not be helping you win fights, but they won't be causing you to lose fights necessarily either. In fact, having a large mafia during even the earliest levels has outstanding benefits:

1. More people in your family helps you purchase Mafia Mike's properties which are 1) cheap, 2) earn decent income and 3) cannot be robbed.
2. You will also be able to purchase plenty of Limited Edition Loot (usually just $10000.) You never know when something amazing will be offered. They rarely stick around more than a few days so you don't want to be left scrambling for mafia members to buy what you like.
3. You earn 3 experience every time you fight as one of your family's capo -- the larger your mafia, the more often you'll see you've fought as a capo & get passive experience!
4. You'll be able to put together a good Top Mafia early on -- the Mastermind position (which can give up to 11% more experience per job) and the Wheelman position (as much as 11% less energy needed per job) are particularly beneficial.

Once you've got 501 people in your mafia, you can feel free to continue adding people for all of the above reasons as well.

3. What should your attack and defense stats be?

It's difficult to give any hard and fast rules about stats. A lot of it really will just depend on your own personal playing style. You'll just have to decide and prioritize for yourself what stats you want and what level you want to get them to.

I dump all my extra points into defense, personally. To me, "extra points" means the points left over after I'm happy with how much energy, health and stamina I've got. For example, I decided at some point I wanted 25 stamina and 200 health. So I didn't put any points into defense until I reached those goals. Every few levels I usually bump up my energy too. But whenever I don't have a specific goal in mind, it goes straight into defense.

For me, it was all about deciding that I wasn't happy with how fast my health was getting depleted or how many times in one sitting I could attack, so I set some goals for health and stamina. And every few levels, I start getting unhappy with how fast I run out of energy, so I pump points into it until I reach some arbitrary number that makes me feel good, like 475 or whatever it may be.

I prioritize attack/defense in that it's my default place to put points. You might come up with another strategy, who knows! Do what you are comfortable with and what makes you feel like you're utilizing your points best.

4. Can I remove "friends" and still have them be in my mafia?

Yes, you can remove friends after you've joined their mafia or they have joined yours. Once someone is in your mafia, you can delete them from your friends list and they will still be in your mafia. You will still be able to send them gifts, energy packs and promote them to Top Mafia, however you won't be able to help them on jobs and vice versa.