Your Mafia is weak!

[BixBeiderbecke]

I get this message from time to time, telling me to get more melee, armor, and vehicles. Is this an in-depth analysis of my stats, notifying me that my equipment is too gun heavy? Or is this just basically an ad, that comes up regardless of stats, in order to sell me gold items?

[dudeman]

You equip your own mafia with up to 5 weapons each, one of each weapon type. It's not hard to see how many of each weapon you own and how many mafia you have. Simple math.

[blondealex]

Who sends you the messages? Is it a comment or a pop up?

[Penutt]

This is a 2 sided message in that of course it is a marketing tactic to boost sales for Funzio but they are also trying to help you by telling you where you are weak at and why rivals are kicking your butt. The main thing to remember and what they base that message on is that for each mafia member you have they can go into battle with one piece of equipment. As you know there are guns, melee, armor, vehicles, and explosives which means if you had 50 mafia members you can have a maximum of 250 pieces of equipment...50 guns, 50 melee, 50 armor, 50 vehicles, and 50 explosives but if you are short with some pieces of equipment it makes you weaker when attacking or getting attacked. For example if you were gun strong as you say and had 50 guns, 35 melee, 40 armor, 20 vehicles, and 10 explosives you would go into battle with 155 pieces of equipment instead of a possible 250 which will result you in catching beat downs. So this is why you are receiving those messages and I hope this helps........

[Dorian Gray]

I believe it's accurate as far as what you need to be fully equipped. But as far as that making you weak... whatever. You should judge for yourself whether or not you are weak by looking at the stats of people at your level. If you have no problem finding winnable fights and aren't getting your but kicked all the time, then I wouldn't consider you weak even though your maria may not be fully equipped.

I still get the 'you are weak' message about vehicles because I still don't have enough for all of my mafia members.

Try telling the people I leave in my wake that I am weak. *insert evil laugh here*
Fight Wins- 6982
Fight losses- 293

[dudeman]

I believe it's accurate as far as what you need to be fully equipped. But as far as that making you weak... whatever. You should judge for yourself whether or not you are weak by looking at the stats of people at your level. If you have no problem finding winnable fights and aren't getting your but kicked all the time, then I wouldn't consider you weak even though your maria may not be fully equipped.

I still get the 'you are weak' message about vehicles because I still don't have enough for all of my mafia members.

Try telling the people I leave in my wake that I am weak. *insert evil laugh here*
Fight Wins- 6982
Fight losses- 293

I agree. Being weak or strong depends entirely on where other players are with their stats.

I haven't had the weakness message in some time and I am not very well equipped, but I'm not short on items for my mafia with the exception of exlosives. Maybe that message only shows if you have empty weapon slots (more mafia than item).

[Penutt]

I am just curious as to what level are you currently at Mr. Dudeman? I see Dorian is still under level 100 and maybe that is why understanding the importance of equiping your mafia the strongest way possible is not of great importance. All imma say is once you get past level 100 there are some beast of players so strong that you wouldn't be able to catch them in stats or power if you spent $5,000 in gold weapons. This is not to say that there are not enough other players to beat down on or rob but why not build up your mafia as strong as possible as early as possible. My attack/defense numbers are decent but if I knew back then what I know now I could have been one of those untouchable beast! So to BixBeiderbecke try to fully equip your mafia equally accross the board and it will pay off later on down the line, TRUST ME!

[dudeman]

I know your stats depend on your items and mafia number, but stats are only a sum of your potential based on equipment, mafia, and skill points.

You are only weak or strong if your numbers are lower or higher than your rivals, so technically your perceived strength is dependent on what type of competition you face.

I never said anything about it not being important to equip your mafia with the strongest items possible from the start. That's actually the opposite of what I was saying.

[Dorian Gray]

I am just curious as to what level are you currently at Mr. Dudeman? I see Dorian is still under level 100 and maybe that is why understanding the importance of equiping your mafia the strongest way possible is not of great importance. All imma say is once you get past level 100 there are some beast of players so strong that you wouldn't be able to catch them in stats or power if you spent $5,000 in gold weapons. This is not to say that there are not enough other players to beat down on or rob but why not build up your mafia as strong as possible as early as possible. My attack/defense numbers are decent but if I knew back then what I know now I could have been one of those untouchable beast! So to BixBeiderbecke try to fully equip your mafia equally accross the board and it will pay off later on down the line, TRUST ME!

Let's assume he is below level 90 and spends all of his respect points as he earns them. Why spread out the money he has 'now' to fully equip his mafia with mediocre weapons, especially if he doesn't really need them at this point. Why not put that money back into his economy? Then when he does hit the 'big time' his thriving economy will allow him to start equipping them with the good stuff. That's my outlook, what do you think Penutt?

[Dorian Gray]

You too dudeman?

[Penutt]

I know your stats depend on your items and mafia number, but stats are only a sum of your potential based on equipment, mafia, and skill points.

You are only weak or strong if your numbers are lower or higher than your rivals, so technically your perceived strength is dependent on what type of competition you face.

I never said anything about it not being important to equip your mafia with the strongest items possible from the start. That's actually the opposite of what I was saying.

Your rival list (competetion) is mostly based on your mafia, stats, and skill points so the rivals a player faces on a normal bases is dependant on these factors. A player's rival list is not just some random computer drawing therefore the way you build up your strength strongly influences how well you will do when attacking or getting attacked. Comparing your stats to someone at your level will do very little for determining where you are strength wise. I'm at level 120 and regularly tax players above me all the way up to 200. Unlike many other cyber bullies, I rarely attack anyone below my level.

[BixBeiderbecke]

This is a great discussion, thanks y'all.

My essential question was touched on, briefly. Should I load up on low level items (Camo Fatigues, say) just so my mafia can be fully equipped? Or should I focus on getting items more my level, so that I don't waste money on items that I will end up replacing? I am currently at 45, 225 mafia with 364 weapons and 154 pieces of armor.

[skunk]

So...
You have 225 mafia, which is your limit, and you should be bringing 1255 weapons to each fight.
But you have 364+154+vehicls+explosives. So lets assume you have no explosives and 100 vehicles.
You are actually equiped with 618 items - about half strength.
Your weapons value is guns+melee !!!.

If I were you I'd count your guns, melee and vehicles and reduce your mafia size to the average value of all 4. You'll find this is about 150 ish.
I bet you could lose 25-50 mafia without even changing your attack/deffense stats!

Then buy molitovs to the number of mafia - it's the cheapest bang for buck ever! ($15,000 for 150 attack points)

After this, spend respect points on the things you are short of - undoubtedly vehicles, so buy mustangs.

Lastly, only increase your mafia when your current mafia are 100% equiped.

skunk

[Penutt]

This is a great discussion, thanks y'all.

My essential question was touched on, briefly. Should I load up on low level items (Camo Fatigues, say) just so my mafia can be fully equipped? Or should I focus on getting items more my level, so that I don't waste money on items that I will end up replacing? I am currently at 45, 225 mafia with 364 weapons and 154 pieces of armor.

Let me see if I can correctly answer this for you. When you attack a rival or being attacked your strongest weapons are supposed to be used from each category guns, melee, armor, vehicles, and explosives so with that being said always try your best to obtain the strongest weapons and as you obtain stronger weapons your weaker weapons basically become obsolete. There has been quite a few discussions on here about buying expensive high cost gold weapons or buying weapons with smaller stats and equiping your entire mafia. For example, you have 50 mafia and you buy 2 Veyrons versus 50 yamahas.......it has been my experience that supplying your entire mafia will make you stronger than buying a few high priced pieces of equipment. I once attacked a player who had 15 Veyrons which made him appear to be very strong but I won 10 straight attacks because my mafia was evenly and well equiped accross the board.

You currently have 225 mafia so my advice to you is to concentrate on supplying them with 225 guns, 225 melee, 225 armor, and 225 vehicles. Im still up in the air about the usefullness of explosives but it seems like they are becoming more and more of a factor especially in the higher levels. I have noticed a lot of the really strong players in level 120 and up are starting to stock up heavily on explosives.

[Penutt]

Let's assume he is below level 90 and spends all of his respect points as he earns them. Why spread out the money he has 'now' to fully equip his mafia with mediocre weapons, especially if he doesn't really need them at this point. Why not put that money back into his economy? Then when he does hit the 'big time' his thriving economy will allow him to start equipping them with the good stuff. That's my outlook, what do you think Penutt?

Dorian that is a very good question and one I have tried my best to balance out in order to remain competetive. If I had the chance to start all over based on what I have learned up until this point I would have concentrated on economy as much as I could up until like level 75 while banking as many respect points as I could until I reached the levels in which I could buy Exeleros and RPGs because as you mentioned the items offered in the earlier levels will quickly become garbage and basically useless. I have found that the players who invested a lot of time in building income are the players able to be very competetive in later stages and a lot of these players are non gold buyers but since they make so much money from wise investments in money buildings that they can afford to mass purchase weapons with virtual money and still have very impressive attack/defense stats.

[Dorian Gray]

Dorian that is a very good question and one I have tried my best to balance out in order to remain competetive.

Thanks for the input. It's really nice to have higher level Mafia Bosses such as yourself helping people out as they move up the CC ladder. I know it's really helped me understand this game in a way I never could have on my own. :)

[Tramp Stamp]

As a data point, I'm mixing a leveling/turtling strategy. I want to have the most cash possible available for money building upgrades yet I also want sufficient mafia defense (and attack, when I'm actively looting). My process has been to concentrate on incremental value and stop purchasing when stats are sufficient at the moment. I have a spreadsheet with all my equipment so I can track my baseline, at what level my weakest stats are. Then I compare that to what's available and go up the ladder. I also looked at allhaildiscordia's job requirement list and targeted items I will eventually need anyway so that I'm not "wasting" money by purchasing what amounts to low level items.

[downrange]

I also looked at allhaildiscordia's job requirement list and targeted items I will eventually need anyway so that I'm not "wasting" money by purchasing what amounts to low level items.

THIS!

Here's my personal cheat-sheet [credit to allhaildiscordia for the raw info]. It represents the eventual total number of each item I would end up having months later anyway after completing all the jobs. I buy up to the number in paranthesis of each item, starting at the low end, until i've got enough to fully equip my mafia. Item count is a separate (and important) factor in PVP, at least in my experience, so these low level items are very cost-effective, and my stats get boosted with M4A1 and Night Vision Googles (useful in the later levels, unlike bikes). I took a small detour from my larger economic goals to buy the 120 Junkers on one of my accounts, but not the other. I'd say that was effective, but not necessary. As long as you max out the other four categories, you'll outclass most Rivals in item count.

CC - Equipment Caps

Melee
(15) Broken Bottle $50
(38) Baseball Bat $125
(84) Crowbar $300
(110) Street Knife $1500
(95) Mace $3200
(82) Night Stick $6000
(62) Meat Cleaver $11000
(54) Fire Axe $27000
(5) Machete $110000
(4) Taser $190000


Guns
(46) Pistol $100
(88) Revolver $250
(75) Shotgun $600
(130) Machine Pistol $1000
(114) Uzi $6700
(90) Combat Shotgun $15000
(70) Assault Rifle $36000
(1) Golden Magnum $70000
(17) Sniper Rifle $150000
(14) Machine Gun $270000


Armor
(34) Trench Coat $75
(36) Ski Mask $200
(100) Steel Toed Boots $400
(90) Military Goggles $750
(96) Gas Mask $4000
(56) Stab Vest $9000
(40) Swat Helmet $18000
(48) Riot Shield $32500
(15) Bulletproof Vest $80000


Cars
(120) Junker $2000
(76) Motorcycle $6000
(72) Hatchback $10000
(52) Pickup Truck $18000
(18) Cadillac $65000
(7) Town Car $120000
(5) Viper $280000

[Rarelibra]

THIS!

Here's my personal cheat-sheet [credit to allhaildiscordia for the raw info]. It represents the eventual total number of each item I would end up having months later anyway after completing all the jobs. I buy up to the number in paranthesis of each item, starting at the low end, until i've got enough to fully equip my mafia. Item count is a separate (and important) factor in PVP, at least in my experience, so these low level items are very cost-effective, and my stats get boosted with M4A1 and Night Vision Googles (useful in the later levels, unlike bikes). I took a small detour from my larger economic goals to buy the 120 Junkers on one of my accounts, but not the other. I'd say that was effective, but not necessary. As long as you max out the other four categories, you'll outclass most Rivals in item count.

CC - Equipment Caps

Melee
(15) Broken Bottle $50
(38) Baseball Bat $125
(84) Crowbar $300
(110) Street Knife $1500
(95) Mace $3200
(82) Night Stick $6000
(62) Meat Cleaver $11000
(54) Fire Axe $27000
(5) Machete $110000
(4) Taser $190000


Guns
(46) Pistol $100
(88) Revolver $250
(75) Shotgun $600
(130) Machine Pistol $1000
(114) Uzi $6700
(90) Combat Shotgun $15000
(70) Assault Rifle $36000
(1) Golden Magnum $70000
(17) Sniper Rifle $150000
(14) Machine Gun $270000


Armor
(34) Trench Coat $75
(36) Ski Mask $200
(100) Steel Toed Boot $400
(90) Military Goggle $750
(96) Gas Mask $4000
(56) Stab Vest $9000
(40) Swat Helmet $18000
(48) Riot Shield $32500
(15) Bulletprof Vest $80000


Cars
(120) Junker $2000
(76) Motorcycle $6000
(72) Hatchback $10000
(52) Pickup Truck $18000
(18) Cadillac $65000
(7) Town Car $120000
(5) Viper $280000

the only problem I see with your strategy if you are a lower level looking to gain strength as you go...

- Why spend the $$ on Fire Axes (7/5) when you will gainfully equip yourself with Nail Bats (7/5) as you attack PvP? I have 126 nail bats and only 5 fire axes. Same with Night Stick (4/5) when you will end up getting Butterfly Knives (5/5) in PvP (I have 277 of these).

- Same with the Assault Rifle ($36,000 each) - instead, buy 100 of the AK-47s at $2,700 each. Also you can get 100 Tommy Guns with RP (stronger than assault rifle). Some say this is a waste of RP but it helps when weaker before you have access to farm the M4s.

[Tramp Stamp]

the only problem I see with your strategy if you are a lower level looking to gain strength as you go...

I am at a lower level and am successfully using this strategy.


Why spend the $$ on Fire Axes (7/5) when you will gainfully equip yourself with Nail Bats (7/5) as you attack PvP? I have 126 nail bats and only 5 fire axes. Same with Night Stick (4/5) when you will end up getting Butterfly Knives (5/5) in PvP (I have 277 of these).

If the item provides no incremental atk/def value then it's not worth buying until the goal, so it can be skipped.


Same with the Assault Rifle ($36,000 each) - instead, buy 100 of the AK-47s at $2,700 each.

AK-47s are arguably a waste of money in that goals need the more expensive SMG which has the same stats. AK goes obsolete while SMG doesn't, in terms of goal completion.


Also you can get 100 Tommy Guns with RP (stronger than assault rifle). Some say this is a waste of RP but it helps when weaker before you have access to farm the M4s.

I needed very little in the way of Respect items to get to the M4 A1. If I had to do it again I would have bought none of it.

[BixBeiderbecke]

Again, a fantastic discussion, and thanks to you who have responded.

I am currently taking 565 items into battle. Considering that my capacity is 1250, that means that it would take a LONG time before I ever got to the point of items becoming obsolete. Given that, it would make sense to equip my mafia according to downgrade's list... Just in case I ever PVE again. But both Dorian and Peanutt have advocated in favor of strong items, so what do you think?

I would of course balance my items with investing in income... I have a question about that, too. I have been following the strategy of "build two of everything and skip nothing" then upgrading to at least level 4. This will require extensive hood expansions... Does this strategy hold up?

[TemplarX]

Bix, I play 2 avatars, one a level 97 with whom I made all the early mistakes but still relatively strong vs my current rivals, and a lower level 55 which is almost untouchable currently because I did all the correct things that i learnt from the game.

I would say early on till level 50, you should focus on getting good weapons, because your main source of $$ would be from robbing and attacking clueless players while your own economy provides little. Strong weapons is the way to go if you have a long term view in mind that eventually they get obsolete. Keep your mafia size low, buy fewer but better weapons, so you would be stronger than rivals of the same size. That would provide you with $$ from pvp. Invest in vehicles...buying 2-2 motorcycles come in when the $6k investments in melee n armor give you less than 2-2 increase in Att-def stats. Eg, you buy a $6k night stick and it brings u only 2-2 increase in Att-def...that's when u buy some motorcycles. Save your respect points till you can buy the yamaha bike.

You shd not neglect your economy, but from lvl 51 onwards (bat same time you can farm the m4a1), you must prepare to build the lofts and Dominican. Many buildings shd be skipped (eg arcade is nonsense and so is clothing store and Chinese restaurant take up too much space), read threads to see which ones. But from lvl 50-80, if you have invested wisely in weapons earlier on, you would be untouchable, with almost no one attacking you, so you never have to bank in money, and you can buildup cash on hand to upgrade and build. This is the time you prepare a superpower economy of cash flow to take on level 90+++. From 90+++, your economy should be churning out cash to fund your weapon upgrades which would make your early weapons obsolete.

[TemplarX]

My strategy does not include gold buying, so if you intend to spend real money, you might be able to jump start the process of robbing early on. Weapons go obsolete, so always buy the best you can at your level. Swat helmets, steel garrotes, 69 camaro and assault rifles last a long time and can bring you up to levels 80, so have no fear buying them even if they appear expensive at lower levels.

[BixBeiderbecke]

Ok, so... following up on this a few weeks later. I cut my mafia size down, but couldn't bring myself to drop mafia members of a higher level than me. I've gotten more melee and armor items, and the message has changed to say "Your mafia is weak, you need more vehicles". So basically, for anyone who is getting this message, it is accurate.

So what to do about the vehicle problem? I currently have 213 mafia (I am level 59), with about 140 vehicles. I am farming vehicles, and I was buying Yamaha bikes with RP (currently have 30). But Peanutt advocated saving RP for Exceleros, so that is what I am doing.

What do you think, gang? Save RP so I can be Uber once I hit level 115, or buy up Yamahas to fully equip my mob? I will note that I am going for a pure PVP build now, so buying vehicles for quests is no longer interesting to me.

[Tramp Stamp]

So what to do about the vehicle problem?

Nothing for now if you don't consider it to be a problem. You can be sitting on a pile of M4s and still get this message because the game uses a primitive check to determine whether you are "weak".

[Stitch]

I wish the stats page would break out my guns and melee weapons count separately, then I could tell how weak my mafia really is!