Mafia Wars: How To Make Friends and Influence Mafia Members

One of your first goals in Mafia Wars should be to get to 501 mafia members as quickly as you can.

Unless you have 501 mafia members, your weapons, armor, vehicles, and animals, will be worthless. You will be beaten repeatedly by mafias with inferior weaponry, etc., because they have more mafia members than you and therefore will use more weapons, armor, vehicles, and animals in their fight against you.

Spending Godfather Points to buy expensive weapons from the marketplace won't help you either. Instead, buy energy or profile points. This way, you can either play more, getting many more weapons for the mafia members you do have, or pump up your attack and defense values.

Another reason for having as many mafia members as you can is that you will have much more help when you post jobs, wish lists, war posts, special collection jobs, etc. The jobs and wars will finish a lot quicker as well. Before Facebook started hiding similar posts my jobs took only 1 to 2 seconds to complete. Even now they still finish very quickly.

This hub will be filled with social networking tips and tricks to get you to 501, or even 5000 and beyond, as quickly as you possibly can. Let's get started!

Mafia Wars by Zynga has Terms Of Service (TOS) that must be followed. Failing to observe the TOS (and getting caught violating them) can get you banned from the game!

The strategies and suggestions provided in this hub are believed by the author to be in accordance with the TOS; however, the TOS are subject to change at any time. The author cannot be responsible for TOS violations stemming from the use of the strategies and suggestions presented in this hub.

You are strongly advised to research the TOS for yourself and to use the information given in this hub at your own risk.

One thing that becomes apparent very quickly when you begin to play Mafia Wars seriously is that your non-mafia friends start getting ticked off by all the Mafia Wars posts on your profile, and consequently in their feed wall. Although it is your Profile, and by all rights you should be able to put what you want on it, many of your real-life friends will be upset by the resulting clutter.

One solution is to split your facebook account into groups and hide the Mafia Wars posts from your real friends. You will also have to ask them to hide the posts themselves, as all the Mafia Wars posts will not be hidden using just your Facebook settings alone.

The problem with this is that it will not hide mafia related posts that you write yourself, only the game generated posts. Also, you can only have 5000 friends on Facebook and if you are really serious about the game you will want that many for your mafia. The more non-mafia friends you have on your account, the less room you have for your mafia friends.

Another, and in my opinion, better solution for this problem is to have separate Facebook accounts. Make one for your real-life friends, and another for your mafia friends. The one for your real-life friends can be titled with just your name. The one for your mafia friends, and for playing the game, can be titled by "your name - games" or "your name" with your middle initial, whatever makes it different. You have to use your real name however you do it. Facebook policy does not allow false names.

If you have not yet begun to play Mafia Wars, or have only just begun, you can simply start over. Play Mafia Wars in your new "games" profile and re-invite, with an explanation, all your Mafia Wars friends. From then on all your mafia friend requests will go to this new profile. After transferring as many Mafia Wars friends as are willing, delete your old Mafia Wars account and all the mafia friends you had on the first Facebook account.

If you are already highly advanced in Mafia Wars, and especially if you have more mafia friends than real-life friends, you will have to do it the other way around. This can be harder, but is very much worthwhile. Just set up your new "non-mafia" Facebook account and invite your real-life friends there. Once they join your new account you delete them from your old one, thereby solving the problem. It may take longer this way depending on how many real-life Facebook friends you have, but your game life will be easier once it is finished.  One more thing to mention about this, some of your real-life friends will also play Mafia Wars and therefore will need to be in both accounts.

Getting pimped out by other players can be very exciting and rewarding. Finding the right members who are willing to do it can sometimes be frustrating.

Start by posting a request in your status line. Something like, "I need more mafia. If anyone could help by pimping me out I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you."

Next, look through your feed wall for mafia members who are already pimping people out. Send requests to all the people being pimped, then send a message to the pimp asking if they would pimp you out as well.

Some of these mafia pimps will have a post asking who wants to be pimped out. Respond to this request and follow their directions. Some are very picky. If they don't have a post, you could send them a private message asking for their help.

Never, never, never use Chat to ask someone to pimp you out, or for any other Mafia Wars request! Mafia members get very upset at the misuse of Chat and are likely to block or delete you.

Once someone pimps you out be sure to thank him or her. And if their services net you a bunch of new members (or if they require it) be sure to send them a worthwhile gift. They are sure to be stronger than you and giving them an item that you don't need means giving them an item that they don't need. I've seen at least one pimp who deleted someone from her account and then attacked them for this.

I don't recommend using pimping services, some one or some group that requires your friends list and perhaps a charge of some kind. I have never seen any posts that endorsed them, while I have seen several posts complaining about them.

You must be diligent if you want to get to 501 mafia members (and hopefully many more than that!) At the time of this writing I have 5901 mafia members and 4979 Facebook friends!

Send out friend requests every chance you get. Just make sure that when you send out a friend request for Mafia Wars, that you put "Mafia Wars" or "MW" as a personal message in your request.

In this way the person you send it to will know why you are requesting his friendship and you will get a better response. this goes for other online games as well.

You can find more prospective Mafia Wars players by clicking on the names of people who respond to or "like" the posts of other mafia members on your feed wall. Send them requests as well.

You will find even more on the Mafia Wars game page, fan page, and in their forum feeds. Just be sure they are actually Mafia Wars members and not phishers or spammers. The easiest way to do this is with a profile switch.

As mentioned above, it is important to have a Profile Switch. A profile switch allows you to go to a Facebook member's profile, say for instance someone who has sent you a friend request. By clicking the bookmarked profile switch (also called an applet or a bookmarklet) or by pasting the applet code into the address bar on the profile page, you are instantly taken to their Mafia Wars profile, if they have one.

This is an excellent way to see if someone actually plays Mafia Wars and to keep phishers and spammers out of your friends list. This is the main reason I use it. In my opinion, it is an indispensible tool that no Mafia Wars player should be without.

The profile switch used to work both ways. For instance, if someone was attacking you repeatedly, you could navigate to their Mafia Wars profile, click the switch to go to his or her Facebook profile, and send them an offer to join your mafia. I used to get lots of mafia members who were stronger than me using this method. Zynga recently blocked it from working in this manner. For a while they blocked it altogether, but have since relented and allowed it to work in one direction only.

I have provided a link to the Profile Switch provider that I use in the link capsule below. Or, you can do an online search of your own for Mafia Wars profile switches, applets, and bookmarklets. The site I use offers a large selection of Mafia Wars applets for free, but some are outdated and no longer work. The only one I have bookmarked myself is the Profile Switch. I have no monetary connection with this site, use at your own risk.

Once again, a profile switch is indispensable for Mafia Wars players. If you don't take any other advice from this hub, at least protect yourself by getting a profile switch.

Another great way to get new mafia members is through friends of friends (and even friends of non-friends). To do this it is important to have a profile switch to avoid spamming people who don't play Mafia Wars, and incurring their wrath.

To start, navigate to a friend's Facebook profile, or to the Facebook profile of someone on a Mafia Wars forum, etc., and go to their list of friends. Next you go down the list, one name at a time, right clicking each name on the list to open their profile in a separate window. This way you will not lose your place on the list. Then use your profile switch to go to their Mafia Wars profile.

If they play Mafia Wars you can see what level they are and decide if you want them in your mafia or not. If they don't play Mafia Wars you will be taken to your own Mafia Wars profile with a note about a mafia player not being found. You simply close the window and go to the next name on the list. If you found a player you want, you hit your browser's back button to go back to their Facebook profile. Once there, you click "add as friend" and include "Mafia Wars" or "MW" as a personal message before clicking "send." When the invite is sent, close the new window and continue on with the next name on the friend list.

A good source of quick, strong players is to watch your feed for mafia members' links asking people to fight another mafia member for them. Go through the list of those who responded and use the same method as above, especially for the ones who posted remarks about how many times they iced the enemy.

Fighting in wars is another good way to both receive friend requests and find other players to send requests to. Mafia Wars has just added an "add to mafia" link on the war page. This makes it very easy to add the other players without even using the profile switch.

There are an almost unlimited number of ways to find Mafia Wars players by using a profile switch. Use your imagination to come up with as many as you can. And while you're at it, leave a comment in the comment selection below to let the rest of us in on your ideas.

Friend suggestions from Mafia Wars players are good for three reasons:

1. You already have a suggestion for someone who most likely plays Mafia Wars (use the profile switch to make sure) and you can see who suggested them.

2. You can go through the suggested player's friends list, as above, and find more players to whom you can send invites.

3. By sending friend suggestions to your fellow players you encourage them to send you more. Also, you build good will with these players making them more likely to help you out in other ways.

Besides the advantage of posting a reply in the "Join my mafia" forums, you also have a vast supply of player's names to send invites to using a profile switch.

I suggest you post to these forums with caution, however, and not reveal what level you are. This is especially important if you're a smaller player who is not very strong yet. Some Mafia Wars players who are bored troll these lists using them as their own personal hit lists.

Also, don't beg. The stronger and more confident in yourself you appear, the more replies you will get.

Another good idea is to post ideas, opinions, and questions in other parts of the forum. Just be careful not to start a new thread if there is already one started. Reply to the previously created thread instead. People in the forums get mad when you start duplicate threads.

Mafia Wars does not allow you to post on the main walls of their pages, unless it's in the forums or on pictures, etc. A good method for getting invites is to "like" all of Mafia Wars' posts and pictures each time they are added, as well as adding a comment to the picture.

You will receive invites from other players who look through the names on these posts, and of course you can do this yourself to send out your own invites. I suggest doing both.

On your own feed wall you should help as many players who post Mafia Wars jobs, and other requests, as you can. Then reply to the post to let them know you helped. This will do two things:

1. Your mafia member will appreciate it and be more willing to help you when you need it.

2. Some of that mafia member's friends who are players may send you a friend request.

Also, for the same reason, you should "like" achievement posts and reply to other Mafia Wars related posts.

Be careful not to spam! Too many posts or replies will aggravate some players and may result in your being "pinked" by Facebook, a warning to stop spamming or lose your account, so use common sense and don't go overboard.

Joining a group or a clan can help greatly in bringing your number of mafia members up.

Watch out! Join Mafia Wars groups with caution. Some groups offering things like free Godfather points, free energy, secret Mafia Wars glitches, etc. are only phishing scam accounts. A group like that is likely to give you nothing in return for stealing your friends list and your personal information.

In joining a clan, keep in mind that for the help and services that they give to you, you are expected to pay your dues and give back in return. Most have codes of conduct to follow and expect you to fight for fellow clan members whenever they call for help. Be sure that you can keep the promises you've made to join the clan, or you may find yourself worse off than you were before.

Also, some clans prohibit multiple tags. Others allow them, but being a member of more than one clan shows a lack of commitment. You may not get as much help as you would have if you just stuck to one clan. Keep in mind that some clans are not helpful at all, so find the right one and work on meeting their qualifications to join.

One last word on clans, If you tag yourself for a clan of which you are not a member, you are in for a world of hurt! Don't do it.

I can't stress enough how important it is to have a "Join My Mafia" link on your Facebook profile. With the large influx of new friends that diligent networkers will receive, you will quickly run out of Mafia Wars invites (the limit being 40 per day).

With a "join" link on your profile you provide a quick, easy way for new friends to join your mafia without either of you using a Mafia Wars invite. You can also include them in friend requests or send them in messages.

Also, when your invites are used up, you can open a second browser window and navigate to each of the profiles for the remaining names in your "My Mafia" invite box. You click on the "join" link for each friend who has one. When you are done, you refresh the invite box window and have the joy of watching many names disappear and your number of mafia players rise.

Mafia Wars used to provide a "join" link that you could post under the picture on your profile. I haven't seen it available lately. If it is no longer offered by Zynga, you may be able to ask friends for the code and substitute your player ID for theirs. Or you could look up the instructions on one of the many Mafia Wars information sites online. There may even be a hub about it right here on Hub Pages.

This link is another very important tool that will save you much time and help you grow faster. I highly recommend getting a "Join My Mafia" link on your Facebook profile. And I recommend encouraging all your mafia members that don't have one to get one, so that they can grow faster as well. There is nothing more frustrating than having a hundred or more names in your invite box and not being able to invite any of them.

Only post your wish list once per day, or at the most two or three times at different times of the day.

Too many wish list posts will get you marked as a moocher and people will be less likely to answer you when you ask for something.

If you are constantly posting your wish list some players will hide your posts or even delete you altogether.

I suggest putting one high level item that is hard to get on your list, along with two consumable items that you need a lot of, or lower level items that will still help you out while working for the higher ones.  This way more players will be able to gift to you since not all players can spare the high level loot. I don't change my wish list very often and usually only post it once a day or less. Before posting it again, I remove the old one first. I keep only one wish list on my wall, and therefore on the feed wall, at any one time.

Spam is your enemy whether you are giving or receiving it. It is annoying to receive, and if you are the sender you will lose many players and friends as well as gain a bad reputation.

Some examples of what other players consider to be spam are:

1. Excessive posts in the Mafia Wars feed. Post when necessary, when you have a question, when you need help, or when you did something you are especially proud about. But other players don't need to know every little thing you've done.

2. Other players will freak out about any type of lottery post, they don't want to know that you bought a ticket and they don't care about what you've won.

3. "Tell Your Friends" posts. Players get mad when you tell them about all the gifts you've received, the items that you bought at the marketplace, everybody you iced in a fight, every time you leveled up, the fact that you completed a collection, every gift you've received from the gift warehouse, etc.

(Don't get the impression that you should never make these posts, after all it's your right to be happy about something. Just don't be excessive and you should be all right.)

4. Posting links of any kind on another mafia member's posts, or especially on their profile. This is one of the quickest ways to get deleted from someone else's mafia. Your link will be deleted too, so it's really not worth it.

5. Posting a request for more mafia members on another member's posts or profile.

6. Advertising a non-mafia item, service, product, etc., on somebody's posts or profile.

7. Advertising non-mafia related things in a private message or chat to Mafia Wars friends.

Keep your Facebook profile wall clean! Delete old Mafia Wars posts and redundant job, war, gift, or item requests. This way you won't frustrate the mafia members who truly want to help you by making them sort through your old posts.

Help yourself by keeping your Feed Wall free of unwanted posts. There is a simple way to do this. Scroll down your feed wall. Whenever you find a game or application post that you do not use click "Hide." When the choices pop up, click the name of the game or application that you do not want to see. This will greatly reduce the feed posts that you have to sort through while playing. Just be sure that, if there is no choice for a game or application when the choices pop up, that you click "cancel" and not the name of your friend. If you click on your friend's name, you will no longer see ANY of his or her posts.

Your feed wall is very important to your game play. You need the help of others to do well in this game. The first day you clean your feed wall will be the hardest. I recommend going down the list of older posts until you've worked through to the four or five hour old posts. After this it will be much quicker and you can maintain your feed wall on a weekly basis.

Getting to 501, 1000, or even 5000 mafia members and beyond, takes a lot of work. Don't skimp on the important things. If you only rely on others pimping you out, forum posts, and clicking "like" on things, you'll end up like a lot of other lazy players who don't take the time to send out requests or reply to posts. You'll be a weak, high-level player with less than 501 mafia members, who gets beaten up and robbed a lot with the poor stats to prove it.

If you want to be good at Mafia Wars you've got to play every day. You have to help others. And most especially, you have to take getting new mafia members into your own hands.

It was a lot of work for me to get over 5900 mafia members. I did it by spending a lot of time doing the little things that are the key for how to find friends. Don't be lazy; send out those requests, even if you have to type a capatcha every time!

If you want to make it in Mafia Wars, send out those friend requests!

Another key goal to building your mafia is keeping it happy. Disgruntled or insulted mafia members leave. Mafia members who give and who help, but are never rewarded, may stop giving and helping.

I make it a practice to give gifts, even when they are not requested. I go through the entire list of 501 mafia members that shows up on the Mafia Wars profile page. I know exactly what items I need to keep and which ones I can give away. So I go down the list looking at each wish list, giving out all that I can spare. I cover the entire list often.

I also give out energy packs going down the same list. When I'm done with the list I spend time on the feed wall and answer as many of the wish lists, requests for building materials, and other posts for help as I can.

I send out mystery bags and other free gifts to my mafia. I click the "send them a gift back" link when I accept free gifts that I have received. I answer all gift requests for the gift warehouse, and I always choose "respect" and never "disrespect"

In return for my efforts, I get mafia members who are growing stronger, I receive the gifts on my wish list without having to post it often, I get loads of mystery bags, free gifts, and warehouse gifts, and I have friends who are willing to help me out when I need it. On top of all that, my mafia keeps growing. Many of these happy mafia members send friend suggestions or tell their mafia family about me resulting in many more friend requests.

Keep your mafia family happy and they will reward you!

I mentioned that I know exactly which items I need and which ones I can spare. The reason for this is that I keep careful track of my top 501 items in eight categories.

Here are all eight categories:

1. Highest attack weapons.

2. Highest defense weapons.

3. Highest attack armor.

4. Highest defense armor.

5. Highest attack vehicles.

6. Highest defense vehicles.

7. Highest attack animals.

8. Highest defense animals.

Keeping track of the highest attack weapons, armor, vehicles, and animals is the easy part. All you have to do is fight someone, click "see all items", and copy and paste it into a word processing document. What you have now is the list of your highest attack weapons, armor, vehicles, and animals in order from the highest to the lowest 501 in each category.

Next navigate to inventory and loot so you can see the attack values of these items.  Add some columns and input the values near the amounts and you know what you need to make yourself stronger, and what you don't need and can give away (unless, of course, it's a special collection item that you don't need but want to keep).

The four defense categories have to be done yourself. You do this by going through each category in your loot list. Add the highest defense items with their amounts and attack values, placing them in order on your chart. When you are finished you will know all the highest defense weapons, armor, vehicles, and animals. Now you know what you need to make your defense better and what you can give away as gifts.

Once you have done the work of making these lists the first time, they are much easier to update. I do it every few days. Unless you get a new item that you haven't had before, you can do it from your Mafia Wars profile page to make it quicker. You can add any new items first from the loot page, and then go to the profile page to update the chart.

This is an important task, which needs to be done. Once you are finished, you will know which jobs to do to make yourself the strongest and most defensible. You will also know what to put on your wish list, and what you can spare as gifts to make your mafia more loyal and happy.

I have one word of caution about giving things away. From time to time Zynga will decide to change the attack and defense values of some of their items.

Keep diligent track of the values of all your items, and don't forget to change the value of the items on your lists to keep them up to date.

Sometimes these changes happen along with or just after a big event. The new Animals category is the big event right now, the next one I know of is Las Vegas. It is possible, now that they have taken the animals out of the other categories, that they may change some of the attack or defense values, not only for the animals, but for items in the other categories as well.

For now you may want to be careful about giving away too many big items even if it looks like you no longer need them.