Essays on Clans and Game Play

--What makes a great clan?
--What can you expect from your Soldiers? what should they expect from their leaders?
--Why do (or DON'T) people in your clan do what you want?
--How does minimum qualifications affect recruiting in a clan?
--Earning Respect vs. Demanding Obedience -- who's clan is it, anyway?
--What went wrong, and why does it feel SO right?

Soldiers of Peace as a clan has been an incredible experience for me personally.
Anyone can start a clan, but there's a lot of "moving parts" set into motion with that decision.
I'll be sharing my own thoughts and philosophies on how clans work, and how they don't.

--Farming or Fighting?
--When is more better, and how much is too much-- clan war philosophies
--Winning vs. Losing
--Timing is everything
--What is "the curve", and how are YOU going to get ahead of it?

Many clans have a philosophy on what makes you "strong" or what's "the best way" to build your account.. sadly, the "popular opinion" is not necessarily in YOUR best interest. More to come.

How To - Elite Soldier

One of the exciting aspects of joining Soldiers of Peace is the Elite Soldier program.
This has proven to be incredibly successful at building combat-capable accounts in very short time.

We will be providing the exact process [SOP] uses to produce Elite Soldiers, and updating information as new information is released. This is the "Building Bible" of our clan to answer the questions our new recruits have consistently asked.

I will be using this discussion to go into a lot of detail about what we are doing and how we are going to do it..


First-- what to expect.
We have a very precise regimen for where you put your skill points at what time.
The account is a modified Clan Farmer initially while gaining levels finishing jobs.
Once the energy pool is large enough, it switches gears to build combat strength.

---->level 600 by day 7: Energy Fun Run
22 attack
35 defense
3700 energy
138 health
97 stam (using 294 GFPoints only)
----> level 800 by day 45: Disposable Hero
1000 attack
35 defense
3700 energy
142 health
125 stam (using 98 GFPoints only)
----> level 872 by day 65: Glass Canon
1000 attack
35 defense
3700 energy
300 health
300 stam (using 70 GFPoints + regular skill points)
----> level 1040 by day 140: Elite Soldier
1000 attack
1000 defense (using 182 GFPoints + regular skill points)
3700 energy
300 health
300 stam

Everytime you get 14 MarketplaceRP, buy 4 skill points and put in stamina.
Once you hit 3700 energy (may be earlier than level 600 for some of you, depending on achievements) ALL skill goes straight into attack. This is going to allow you to use the growing stamina pool for additional xp rather quickly.
By the end of those 45 days, you are already strong enough in attack and have enough stamina to be a nuisance on the battlefield. your poor health will weaken your ability to ice opponents in a live skirmish or war, this is strengthened by the 65th day, where you are with 300 health.
From her
all skill points and Marketplace RP now go towards boosting defense up to 1000 to attain [SOP-Elite] status. by now, you will be winning most fights against you on the fight page and lasting well on the hitlist (free xp!) and will be able to hold your own against most "typical" fighters ranging from level 400 - 600 in most skirmishes.


Next is the specific schedule of which jobs to do
****PLEASE NOTE****
The process for building an Elite is NOT the same as following the city guides one after the other. It is juggled between various cities to maximize your productive time.
If your gaming schedule does not allow you to maintain the daily routine; follow along in your best capacity with the time allowed.

day 1 ny + cuba + 1st ep BANG + 1st ep mosc
Work NY as the guide states-- but when you master Consigliere, start building money in Cuba while juggling underboss and boss. You will finish NY while accumulating the necesary money in cuba. you can juggle high tier and low tier jobs together to sustain your leveling in cuba.
Open and work through the 1st episode of bangkok only to finisahing chapter 3... do not bother completing it at this time... the next day you will move on the the next episode. Moscow, however, go aheasd and complete the finale; you WILL be repeating ep. 1 tomorrow.
day 2 juggle cuba while working the 2nd ep BANG and mastering the 1st episode of mosccow for the second time.
day 3 Juggle cuba while finishing the 3rd chapter of bangkok episode 3. keep working sat phones until you have enough Baht to buy the pirate business. keep collecting sat phones until you have B$120k so you can produce 5 pirates every 3 hours. you may need more baht if you cant collect every 3 hours... just gather sat phones until you have what you need for your game. Finish the 3rd mastery of moscow episode 1... tomorrow you'll begin moscow ep 2.
day 4 juggle cuba with the 4th ep. of Bangkok just like ep. 3-- stop at the end of 3rd chapter, and work on opening the drug business. continue working SAT PHONES from ep 3 until you have the baht to build the drug business to your optimal harvesting/game time schedule.
YOU ARE NOW DONE WITH BANGKOK until you have finished moscow. By allowing days to pass working elsewhere, you allow your businesses to produce the pirates and drugs you will later need.Be dedicated to collect them as often as you have allowed. if you are finding your RL schedule restrictive; go back and farm more sat phones until you have enough capacity to meet your changing online schedule.
finish the 2nd episode of moscow through chapter 3
day 5 finish the 3rd episode of moscow through chapter 3- juggling cuba or NY settle a beef as necesary to continue leveling.
day 6 finish the 4th episode of moscow through chapter 3
day 7 finish the 5th episode of moscow through chapter 3
day 8 finish the 6th episode of moscow through the finale. we'll master all 3 tiers of ep. 6 to improve efficiency and accumulate R$ quicker.
day 9 finish the 2nd mastery of 6th episode of moscow
day 10 finish the 3rd mastery of 6th episode of moscow and farm it as necesary to acquire R$. You will now stop using cuba to juggle; use pakhan and settle beef as necesary.
day 11 finish the 2nd mastery of the 2nd episode of moscow
day 12 finish the 3rd mastery of the 2nd episode of moscow
day 13 finish the 2nd mastery of the 3rd episode of moscow
day 14 finish the 3rd mastery of the 3rd episode of moscow
day 15 finish the 2nd mastery of the 4th episode of moscow
day 16 finish the 3rd mastery of the 4th episode of moscow
day 17 finish the 2nd mastery of the 5th episode of moscow
day 18 finish the 3rd mastery of the 5th episode of moscow
moscow is done-- and we will now be moving back to bangkok.
W specifically will be doing these tiers in order to allow the drugs ande pirates grow. When you find yourself short on baht; go back to sat phones to gather more.
day 19 finish the 2nd mastery of the 1st episode of bangkok
day 20 finish the 3rd mastery of the 1st episode of bangkok
day 21 finish the 4th mastery of the 1st episode of bangkok
day 22 finish the 2nd mastery of the 2nd episode of bangkok
day 23 finish the 3rd mastery of the 2nd episode of bangkok
day 24 finish the 4th mastery of the 2nd episode of bangkok
day 25 finish the 2nd mastery of the 3rd episode of bangkok
day 26 finish the 3rd mastery of the 3rd episode of bangkok
day 27 finish the 4th mastery of the 3rd episode of bangkok
day 28 finish the 2nd mastery of the 4th episode of bangkok
day 29 finish the 3rd mastery of the 4th episode of bangkok
day 30 finish the 4th mastery of the 4th episode of bangkok
day 31 finish the 1st mastery of the 5th episode of bangkok
day 32 finish the 2nd mastery of the 5th episode of bangkok
day 33 finish the 3rd mastery of the 5th episode of bangkok
day 34 finish the 4th mastery of the 5th episode of bangkok
day 35 finish the 1st mastery of the 6th episode of bangkok
day 36 finish the 2nd mastery of the 6th episode of bangkok
day 37 finish the 3rd mastery of the 6th episode of bangkok
day 38 finish the 4th mastery of the 6th episode of bangkok
day 39+ from now of, farm whatefver top loot you wish from moscow and bangkok; using NY settle beef to make up the difference in energy.

Remember-- gaining a level is WAY more important than anything else... if you have to settle beef all the time to keep leveling, then do it. Your energy pack will allow you to at least once per day harvest loot or do less efficient jobs during this process.
With the toolbar miniboosts, daily energy pack, and stamina supply-- you should be able to stick to this schedule easily. If it does take you longer to finish all the cities; that's fine. it is a 150 day process. you have time.
Some of you may double up bangkok and moscow jobs if you already have the drugs and pirates necessary.


If you have any questions, be welcome to join the SOP Open Group
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=237571172671

There is a discussion thread dedicated to this subject here:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=13846&uid=237571172671

Folks-- I could have put this in some pdf and charged $20 like all those lame "dominate blah blah" books that promise us everything and deliver squat... Ironically, this guide ACTUALLY delivers what you want-- levels, power, and a formula to do it with no BS attached.
If this has been a help, please make a donation so my wife doesn't feel so neglected. :)
Here's a guideline:

$5 = This Really Made a Difference!

$10 = Holy Hannah! I Can't Believe You Didn't Charge $20 For This!!
$20 = I don't mind paying "full price" for great information that is current and USEFUL.

Send to my paypal email: filkearney@gmail.com

How To -- Speed Level & Energy Farming

The earlier tutorials on the various cities did not discuss specifically HOW to use your skill points... those publications demonstrate the most efficient way to complete them.
Those steps spell out the core "How-to" of Speed leveling already.
This section is to point out a few tweaks and procedures that are specific to the Speed Leveler / Energy Farmer.


There are two types of speed leveling: Energy and Stamina
Stamina relies primarily on fighing weaker opponents. It's advantage is that you can designate a "victim" to attack over and over and over... these are unpopular because MOST people choose to run this type of account by running an attack macro... not actually playing the game at all. Just letting the computer work. Zynga frowns on this-- Facebook frowns on this-- I do NOT recommend this style of play; I am mentioning it here to help you understand the difference between this type of stamina leveling and what I recommend; Energy Leveling.

Energy Leveling very simply adds all skill points to Energy. every time you can get a
skill point, you slip it into Energy so you can do more jobs. more jobs. more jobs.

A straight energy account will never put skill points anywhere else, and will use the chop shop to add even more energy by building the Solar Flare (+5 maximum energy!)

Whenever you gather 14 reward points... go to the marketplace and buy 4 skill points for 14 RP... add those 4 to Energy.

Daily chance rewarding you with a skill point after 4 tickets are played per week-- add to Energy

Mystery Bag grants you 5 skill points.... add to Energy.

This style of play-- sometimes called "Energy Farmer". can jack up to 1000+ levels in a week if you play OFTEN.


The Energy Farmer has two further subdivisions:
-- Beef Eaters do only the jobs needed to finish underboss for the 5% xp bonus, and whatever is needed to get to level 100 ASAP to "settle a beef".
Settle a Beef is the MOST efficient job in the game with virtually NO materials to do it. Also known as a "serial leveler"; this type of play levels to level... it has no purpose beyond leveling. This often ends up on a macro. I am not going to encourgae it.
--Clan Farmers, however, are designed to serve the needs of a Clan. They follow the guides here to master ALL jobs in short order. The Clan Farmer's strongest advantages is that it can PLAY THE GAME. It can gather any special loot event, It can complete any job, tear through new expansions... It typically is the first with the "new toys"... if you are here to simply log in, have some click-happy fun and be done... this is a great choice! You will ALWAYS feel like you are accomplishing something, and you have the ability to gather anything anyone would want.. so if you are playing for the social aspect alone; to treat others with gifts... this is a fun choice.

The real DISadvantage of the Clan Farmer is that it absolutely cannot fight worth a damn. Mafia Wars doesn't care about your ability-- when it comes to fighting, it pits you against opponents of the same LEVEL... so if you have a new account, follow this blog and explode up to level 600 in a week-- you are going to find yourself squared up against opponents who have taken a YEAR to get very strong at fighting... Even with great combat gear being collected.. you are a squishy target with no chance of survival.

Clan Farmers are the life-blood of a clan. to use lions as an example; Farmers are the Lionesses that feed the Protectors. Farmers go do jobs and collect loot. This loot is easily attained by the Clan Farmer who diligently completed every job there is... but the loot is useless because the Clan Farmer simply doesn't have the combat strength to use it. The Protector/combat accounts NEED this loot to win battles.
Ironic, isn't it?

In the Bangkok expansion; and presumably in the upcoming Vegas release; we have faction loot, which CANNOT be gifted at all... so now the Farmers that so easily collect money have no REAL use for it.. because even faction loot alone cannot compete against combat accounts.
But the Combat accounts-- they desperately need money-- as much as they can get!
Sadly, MOST combat accounts simply don't have the energy to be able to collect B$ with any haste at all.
Energy accounts tend to accumulate a LOT of money and max out businesses pretty fast-- this leaves them with "nothing better to do" with their money. so it tends to just lay around and get neglected.
This is a NEW role the Farmer can play for the clan! by banking money, the farmer can "save" 93% of the money it accumulates to be dispersed later. How?
So obvious-- The farmer will pull money out of the bank, and remove the combat account from it's mafia / friends. the combat account can now easily attack the farmer.

Interestingly; the attacker is rewarded 10% MORE than the farmer loses each attack... so banking the money is a zero-loss to the clan. A "good" farmer can easily accumulate B$1,000,000 per day or more-- often enough for a combat account to buy 2 or 3 Faction inventory each day they work together.


If you have any questions regarding this information, be welcome to join us at the SOP Open Camp:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=237571172671

A discussion thread is provided to continue this conversation here:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=13847&uid=237571172671

Side Projects

There is more to Mafia Wars than just doing jobs and fighting people. These various "side projects" will be detailed on how to improve your game in general, regardless of your level.
--Building your mafia-- do's and don'ts
--Chop Shop Optimization
--Lotto and Laundry

Vegas Tutorial

Zynga is going to roll out yet another City in 2010!
Every expansion means more kick ass stuff for us to do in Mafia Wars!

We'll report it as fast as it is available, and optimize it within days. :)