Mafia Wars Cheats & Tips: Six easy ways to get ahead

Mafia Wars is a text and picture-based game on Facebook, where you climb the crime ladder by growing your mafia, completing missions and fighting against other families. The game is set in New York, but players can travel between New York to Cuba, Bangkok, Moscow and Las Vegas (coming later in 2010) to do more missions and make more money.

If you're new to the game, these six tips that will help you go from hired thug to godfather, sending your rivals to sleep with the fishes along the way.

1) Chose your character class wisely. When the game begins, you'll create and character and then must select one of three character classes. The Mogul class receives money from properties every 54 minutes instead of the usual 60, Manic class gets an energy recharge every three minutes instead of five minutes (like the other two character classes), and Fearless class receives a health recharge every three minutes instead of every five minutes.

While each class has its strengths and weaknesses, I chose the Manic class since you need energy to do and complete jobs. Heath and stamina points come into play when you fight other mafias. Some people say the Fearless class is better because once the fearless character is put in the position of Wheelman by a fellow Mafia member, they have a chance of paying zero energy for jobs.

2) Don't bother depositing your money in the bank if you are below level 50. The reason for this is the most you stand to lose in a fight in $100,000. The "laundering fee" for depositing money is 10% which means you are paying more to keep your money in the bank that you actually stand losing it in a fight.

3) Buy properties in the blocks of 10 to save money since properties go up in cost each time you buy. Some properties go up faster than other and the buildings go up faster than the lots.