Robbing: A Comprehensive Primer (Part 2)

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Zinga re-instituted robbing to Mafia Wars a while back and many players still do not understand how it works. In yesterday’s post we discussed how the numbers crunch to determine who wins when a would-be robber hits a property.

We learned that the numbers all come down to the total offensive power of the robber versus the total defensive power of the player being robbed plus or minus a random number.

Now we will delve a bit deeper into robbing in Mafia Wars.

Difficulty Levels

When you begin robbing the first thing that you will notice is that properties have difficulty ratings such as easy, medium, and hard. What these ratings represent is the difference between your total attack power and your target’s defensive capability. This is the difference before the random number is added to the mix. With the random number added you can however unlikely lose to an easy target or win over a hard target. In the table below you can see an approximation of the chances of winning before the random number is added to the mix.

Please note that these numbers are not official according to Zynga. They are simply an approximation of the chances you have to win the fight.

What Can You Do to Improve the Chances of Winning?

If you want to improve your chances of winning when robbing or defending successfully when defending a robbery the most obvious thing that you can do is dump stat points into offense and defense respectively. One problem with this solution is that most players try to balance attack and defense skills and not devote their skill points to either totally.

Many characters are “Energy” characters, meaning that most, if not all stat points have been poured into energy in order to allow the character to level as quickly as possible. One might thing that such a character is just a sitting duck for other players with larceny on their minds but that is not the case.

To ensure that you have the best chance to win it is imperative that you build up 501 of the top offensive and defensive items in the game. You need 501 of them because the use it two fold. First in player versus player combat (not being robbed) you can attack or defend with up to 500 of your mafia members plus yourself. When your mafia attacks or defends to help you the equipment (1 one offensive, 1 defensive, 1 vehicle each) that they use is provided by you, thus you want to have 501 of the best of each in the game.

Even though you cannot use all 500 of your mafia members when robbing or being robbed your chances of success improve greatly with better equipment. Another thing that you can do its to re-vault collection items to build up offensive and defensive boosts.

How Can a Player Prevent Robbery?

While technically you can prevent robbing it is not feasible. You would have to refrain from purchasing any properties and always bank any cash that you earn from jobs.

For the practical player who owns properties there is really nothing in the game mechanics that can prevent you from being robbed. However there are some things that you can do to minimize losses.

• ALWAYS bank any cash that you earn from jobs in any city.
• Build up 501 of the best offensive and defensive items in the game.
• When you are robbed you could contact your mafia and ask them to start hitting problem players who abuse the robbing system to keep hitting them over and over.

Mafia Wars is a game of crime and robbery is just one facet of the criminal industry. It looks like robbing is here to stay and there is no feasible way to avoid it as a player so you need to be prepared