Mafia Wars is an online game created by Zynga that participants can play on Facebook if they add the application to their account. In order to do so, simply do a search for Mafia Wars from your Facebook page and then opt to allow the application to access your Facebook account. You need no other passwords or sign-in information, all will be pulled from your Facebook account.

The game itself allows players to create a Mafia Wars name and join up with other players to form families. Currently, there are four areas of the globe where players can do jobs, build businesses, buy property and earn (and spend!) money too. The game is played in New York, Cuba, Moscow and will soon launch in Bangkok.

Players begin their journey in New York City as a street thug. They do small jobs which will earn them small amounts of money. Some of the jobs require weapons that must be purchased before the job can be accomplished. Be careful and look out for your energy. Once your energy is depleted, you can’t do any more jobs until it builds back up. (More about that in the tips below!). You are also able to fight other Mafia Wars players try to take out players who have been put on the hit list. Doing this earns you money and experience points. Of course, you are asking “what are experience points”? And well you should - these are the points you need to level up through the ranks. Early in the game, you will need a small amount of points to move up to the next level; but beware - the higher your level, the more points you need. For example, a player in the high 300’s usually needs about 3,000 experience points to level up so it can take a while.

Once you advance to level 35, you can travel to Cuba and do jobs there while you continue to do jobs in New York. Cuba jobs are harder than New York jobs because you don’t earn as much money from your Cuban businesses, fights or jobs. Also, you need to have quite a few corrupt politicians in order to do some of the higher level jobs in Cuba - because there is a lot of bribery involved in doing businss over there! You can find these corrupt politicians (Politico Corruptos) in the business section and earn up to ten additional ones each time your businesses cycle; however, you can purchase more for C$500,000 (which is tough to come by in Cuba). Other family members can gift you Politicos so make sure they are on your gift list.

Keep in mind that you have to go to the 'business' section in Cuba and manually click on the Politico Corruptos. You get five every three hours and the storage limit is ten so if you skip a few days, you are wasting precious Politicos!

Players must be at level 70 or higher to progress into Moscow. These jobs are much more difficult than the two previous areas. This is because plenty of Russian Rubles are needed to purchase weapons, vehicles and body armor. And quite a few of these items are needed to do jobs. For example, once a player gets up to level 5, they’ll need 10 RAS28-SMGs which cost $6,800,000 and 10 Shturmovaya Vintovka which cost $4,800,000 plus six Lisitsa 32 Sedan which cost $6,200,000 and finally 3 BYK-922 which cost $12,900,000 EACH!

The players who quickly move up the levels and successfully win fights and hits are those with big families. But what if your Facebook friends don't play? Are you doomed to a life with a small family? No way! This video shows you how to grow your family and gives you tips to protect your page from these strangers who are going to be playing the game with you.