Ten Tips for New Players of Mobsters for Facebook and Myspace

Mobster's best players are made men. Every day a list of the deadliest hit men, wealthiest mobsters, top fighters and deadliest foes is published listing the names of the elite each day, each week and for all time. So, do ya wanna get made? Here's how:

Select your Character. Mobsters offers several choices of characters: Mogul, Soldato, Nightowl, and Renegade. Each starts with unique strengths. For example, Moguls become rich quickly, Soldatos are better fighters and Nightowls have more energy for missions. Renegades have a little of everything. Although every level offers an opportunity to tinker with energy, defense strength, attack strength, healing and stamina, asking yourself whether you are a relentless attacker or if you are all about the Benjamins will help you decide where to start.Buy Property in 10's. You may not have noticed that prices increase with each purchase. Soon you are paying more and more for less and less income. You can buy up to ten properties at a time. Always do so. Don't be in a hurry to buy the most glamorous property. You will be better off with a flock of restaurants than with one impressive property. When you scout rivals for attacks, the one who only seems to have a few dinky lots may be the most deadly of all since he is also the craftiest and most patient.

Recruit, Recruit, Recruit. A large family means greater strength and no wasted weapons. Without sufficient numbers you cannot get badges, buy heliports or airports or win fights. Mobster's forums in Myspace will help you grow your crew. Other alternatives include websites such as Becomemade or Mobsterdepot. These websites are not connected with either game designer Playdom, or your social network so use with caution.

Once you have some crew members, use your broadcast to add more. Requests for mobstersare called "add trains" and mobsters who ask you to "pimp them out" are requesting that you add them to your mob or re-post their request so that others may add them.

Completing missions is the least expensive and best way to get powerful weapons. Buying weapons costs money, increases overhead, reduces cash flow and makes you poor. Besides saving money, weapons achieved through gameplay often are more powerful and cost less to operate. Save your cash for territories to generate cash. If you spend beyond your cash your weapons will stop working. Then you will have to sell weapons at a loss to get out of the red.

Avoid buying and selling properties and weapons. There's no point. You take a terrible haircut, getting back half of what you paid. If you are in the market for better properties, keep the old ones and buy more. If you have weapons lying around, recruit for enough hands to hold them. You can always win hired guns in missions or pay the godfather for additional hired guns if you have more people than you can arm.

Over-attacking. When you are new, you wonder what an "over-attacker" is. Sometimes it seems that an over-attacker is anyone who is beating your pants off, but there is an informal etiquette. Not attacking anyone more than 3 times in a row is considered good form and avoids starting a war that you might lose. Good manners keep you off the hit-list too

Never Cross The Families. As in real life, never cross a Mafia family. More advanced players join families for protection against rivals and over-attackers. If you are a good player, you will be recruited relentlessly. But when you join a family, you will also pledge your support during wars. To avoid getting dragged into a war, avoid insulting or abusing other players. Don't post personal comments on your wall or on theirs or you will pay. Tags help identify allies and foes. The more you write, the more likely that someone targeting your allies will target you too. On the other hand, no one likes a coward.

Don't level quickly. When you are new, you are excited every time that you rise a level and try to level as quickly as possible. This can be a mistake. At the highest levels, opportunities to fight are reduced and play slows. The game protects new, low-level players from attack while rendering old-hands more vulnerable. For example if a player is hit listed, a lower-level player can relentlessly attack even a hospitalized foe, while the same hospitalized mobster is safe from attack by others at his level or higher until he recovers. Very low-level players cannot be attacked at all.

For this reason, experienced players will start a new persona, called a "lower-level" and will switch from character to character to target rivals at all levels. Having a lower-level character also allows you to play when your higher-level character is repeatedly hit-listed or killed due to vendettas or wars.

Paying attention to the experience points granted in each mission and avoid excessive fights so that you can stay strong and rich while leveling slowly.

Don't attack bounty hunters. The first time you are hit-listed, you will be hit by a flurry of bounty-hunters seeking the big pay-off. Don't retaliate or you will be in a war. The correct target for revenge is the one who listed you.

Keep buying those properties and you will become too expensive to hit-list. And, as a bonus, you can start hit-listing people yourself. If you are a very new player with a low bounty, consider joining a family if you are repeatedly hit-listed. Attackers will back off rather than face the wrath of an entire family.

If you are an independent mobster with a large crew and not much money, you may wish to publish on your broadcast the number that appears between quotes after 3a when you click on a mobster's name. This number is unique for each mobster and you can identify bad actors for your crew to attack. Keep in mind that you will have to return the favor.

Beware the Bots. Look out for mobsters who have been on the hit-list for hours. They are probably using an automated cheat called a "heal-bot." A heal-bot senses when a player is in danger and automatically heals him.

Other bots scout the hit-list for targets and still others called property-calcs automatically buy property. These are all against Playdom's terms of service, and can get your account canceled if you are caught using them. If you are asked to input strings of characters called, Captchas, it means that Playdom is confirming that a human is playing. If something strange is happening, you are playing against a computer.

Follow these ten strategy tips and you will be well on your way to becoming made.