How to level up faster in Mafia Wars

This is my guide on how to level up faster in Mafia Wars. This guide is more than a guide, it is more like a strategy. At the time of writing, I can level up at least 10 levels a day and the maximum number of levels I can do is 30 to 50. This is a 3-step guide and each step is equally important.

Step 1: Promote your Mafia Members, if you have already done this, you can skip to Step 2

Assign your best mafia members to positions within your mafia. To do is, please go to: My Mafia> My Mafia , you can promote your members according to the following:

1. Mastermind: Promote a member with many jobs completed to get more experience pts. from doing jobs. (I get 10% more exp. From Jobs)
2. Wheelman: Promote a member with the Fearless character type and high level to get an Attack bonus. (I use 10% less energy on jobs)
3. Bodyguard: Promote a member with many fights won to get a Defense bonus. (I get 11 bonus to attacks)
4. Safecracker: Promote a member with many successful heists to get more money from fighting and robbing. (I get 9% more cash from fights)
5. Bagman: Promote a member with the Mogul character type and a high level to get more money from jobs. (I get 15% more cash from jobs)

Step 2: Get help from your friend

As I am a Manic, my energy regenerates faster than any other character in Mafia Wars and I spend all the available skill points in increasing the Energy to do more jobs. I got help from my friends to promote me to Mastermind in their family. So, when I do jobs, being a Mastermind, I occassionally get 50% more experience from jobs, this is additional to +10% experience points getting from promoting Mastermind in my family.

Step 3: Choosing the job which gives you the higher return ( this involves some simple calculation)

Normally, you can’t choose jobs in Mafia Wars, you have to complete every jobs. However, in certain situations such as when you are run out of cash, but you don’t want to buy cash from Zynga and you don’t want to wait for money earned from your properties while you have a lot of energies, you can choose jobs to earn money and experience by revisiting completed jobs.

CurrentIy I am doing Bangkok jobs, Episode 5A Oyabun. I am in the same situation as described above. So I do the job which gives me the highest return on energy(ROE) and money. (ROE comes directly from business finance)

To determine the ROE from a job, divide 'the experience you’ll gain by doing the job' by 'the Energy you need to spend to do that job'. Eg. A job of 260/136 will give you 1.911in ROE (this is the minimum return you will get when click once). Compare this number with your 'Experience to Level up' divided by 'Available Energy'.  The top panel in Mafia Wars has status indicators such as 'Money', 'Health', 'Energy', 'Stamina', and 'Experience to level up'. Of these, we are only interested in 'Energy'(as in available energy) and 'Experience to level up'. To determine the overall ratio, (Experience to level up) is divided by (Available Energy). For example, 2654/1608 = 1.65.

This can be interpreted as you can do any jobs as long as their ROE is more than 1.65. From the example above, 1.911 is way much higher than 1.65, it is certain that you will level up again and again by doing that job with 1.911 in ROE repeatedly. That’s the secret. If there are competing jobs giving you the same return, then go for money. In some episodes, there are jobs giving you the same return and same amount of money, go for a Lootable job.

Let's say ROE from a job is 1.5, this is less than 1.65 and there is a short fall of 0.15. To cover that short fall, you need to wait until the energy is regenerated enough to level up. Or you can use energy pack or buy an energy refill.

Revisiting completed jobs has quite a number of advantages: you can earn money, experience points and you can loot down items helping you build/upgrade your properties(eg. In Las Vegas). You can level up as much as you want a day. Disadvantage? Time consuming and you are not actually doing new jobs, just repeating the completed jobs. This means even though you leveled up higher, you still stuck at the same episode. Step 3 is very helpful to achieve this. Step 1 and 2 is more focused on completing new jobs. In fact, without the money, you cannot buy the items necessary to complete new jobs. So, any of these steps should not be isolated, they all work in unison.

Hope you’ll find this guide useful. Suggestions are welcome. Please leave a comment if you need some clarification. Have a nice day! :)

p.s. At max energy (2305/2305),
Available energy means (Available energy --> 1608/ 2305 <--Max energy)