Quite a few needed (and appreciated) updates just went live tonight. First off, a new group of achievements was added to the game, which I covered in the prior post.

Additionally, the final two episodes of Moscow will be available next week (right on the game updates section of the Mafia Wars application).

Furthermore, stamina now only costs 1 stat point (instead of 2). It has only been 1 stat point for new players (with racket access) for some time now. This leads us to believe that all players will have access to rackets soon enough.

Finally, defensive items have gotten a huge stat boost. Now, as I mentioned in my earlier video post on fighting and on the change in the combat formula, you will not be able to win nearly every fight on offense regardless of large stat differentials.

Here are the items that have been changed:

Weapons:

Gaff Hook: 20 attack, 35 defense (old: 30 defense)

Dillinger's Wooden Gun: 12 attack, 45 defense (old: 42 defense)

Arana Net Gun: 16 attack, 40 defense (old: 38 defense)


Vehicles:

Armored Limousine: 16 attack, 37 defense (old: 36 defense)

Private Jet: 12 attack, 39 defense (old: 38 defense)

Armored State Car: 30 attack, 42 defense (old: 38 defense)

Capone's Armored 341A: 14 attack, 42 defense (old: 38 defense)

Tiger Tank: 18 attack, 48 defense (old: 43 defense)

Hydrofoil: 8 attack, 38 defense (old: 37 defense)

Low Rider: 12 attack, 44 defense (old: 38 defense


Armor:

Camouflage Body Armor: 18 attack, 34 defense (old: 28 defense)

Red Coat: 2 attack, 38 defense (old: 32 defense)

Galea: 18 attack, 45 defense (old: 42 defense)

There are the changes that I picked up - post in comments if I missed any armor pieces and I will update accordingly. As far as the release of Episodes 5 & 6 goes - keep an eye on the Mafia Wars Guide homepage for updates!

Tonight, 10 new achievements were added to Mafia Wars along with some other changes. The new achievements are as follows:


Hitman: Earned by collecting a bounty from the hitlist.

Bounty Hunter: Earned by collecting 50 bounties from the hitlist.

Master Collector: Earned by vaulting all of the New York and Cuba collections.

Next!: Earned by mastering all of Cuba.

Dedicated: Earned by logging in and completing a job 20 days in a row.

Set Them up for Later: Earned by losing 10 fights in a row.

Brawler: Earned by winning 100 fights in a row.

It's Good to be the King: Earned by being promoted to at least 10 friends' top mafia.

First Blood: Earned by declaring and winning a war.

Veteran: Earned by participating in 500 wars.


Also, when you complete an achievement now, you can advertise it to your friends:

When your friends click on the banner, they can get some money, experience points (highest reported is +50) and a consumable item.

Nice little addition. The hardest ones seem to be "Set Them up for Later" and "Brawler" - these events would not occur often naturally. However, I think it would be pretty easy to rig it; just have a stronger friend attack you 10 times (set them up for later) or attack a weaker friend 100 times (brawler). Some other updates have been made and I will cover them in the next post.

By browsing through the comments on my last couple of Mafia Wars Moscow posts, it is easy to see there is one recurring theme: the jobs in Moscow cost a ridiculous amount of money! To show you all what I have been doing to make money, I present to you my first video(s). Forgive me in advance for the mic (it's a bit fuzzy) - I know I need a new one. Also, forgive me for the editing (or lack thereof), this is my first time using Camtasia.

Video 1: Making Money in Moscow With Fighting



In this video, I show how I used a level ~280 account with high attack/defense to make close to 700,000 Rubles with about 30 stamina. If you can't see the video, here are the cliff notes:

1. You can not win money in fights from players who are knocked out (under 20 health).
2. Most players attack people at the top of the fight list because scrolling down takes work.
3. Most players attack people with small mafias because they are guaranteed to win.
4. As a result, players with 501 mafia size are almost always alive, so you have a better chance to win money off them.
5. In the video, I made around $700,000 Rubles off of 30 stamina (video was not edited). When you consider that you regenerate 320 stamina a day, it's not bad at all.

Video 2: Making Money With an Energy Account



This video is pretty straight forward. On my energy account, I simply have sold all of my equipment and been doing the same episode 4 job over and over again, netting about 40,000,000 rubles off of my energy pack. I also call for help every day on the boss fight for an extra 2.5 million rubles.

Defense rackets are one of the 4 tiers in the new rackets system. At the time of this posting, there are 3 rackets available.

Each racket rewards 3 boosts (4 boosts if the tier is mastered) unlike the job rackets which only provide 2-3 boosts. With that said, here are the defense rackets:


Garbage Dump (master this to unlock Scrapyard):


Cost: 17 Influence
Time until completion: 44 hours
Reward: Boxer x3 (4 if racket is mastered): +38 fight defense
1 Experience Point
7% Racket Mastery (only shows 2% in picture because it was the last 2%)


Scrapyard (master this to unlock Toxic Waste Dump):


Cost: 38 Influence (I think - influence does not show in above screenshot since I was way over the cap)
Time until completion: 44 hours
Reward: Boxer x3 (4 if racket is mastered): +65 fight defense
1 Experience Point
4% Racket Mastery



Toxic Waste Dump


Cost: 128 Influence
Time until completion: 44 hours
Reward: Mr. Hot Sauce x3 (4 if racket is mastered): +100 fight defense
1 Experience Point
2% Racket Mastery



My Take

The defense rackets are a bit disappointing to say the least. Mr. Hot Sauce is actually a boost that could make a difference (+100 fight defense is significant), but at the cost (128 influence!) and the time investment (44 hours) for simply 3 boosts, this simply does not strike me as being worth it. The 128 influence requirement is the deal-breaker for me; you would actually have to point a significant number of stat points into influence to reach this requirement (even if you were going beyond your normal total by collecting influence rewards to push you past your cap, mentioned in the main rackets section).

Personally, I would rather not put 100 points into influence and instead put 100 stat points into defense - that way I would have + defense for every time I am attacked rather than just a few times every couple days.

I think to remedy the situation, influence should be a forced stat (i.e. unlocked by doing something in the game) rather than a stat you can freely put points into. For example:

- Give us +1 influence every 5 or 10 levels (if it was 1 influence every level, it would just reward power-levelers and energy accounts)
- Give us +1 or 2 influence for doing achievements. This would make getting these more worthwhile!
- Give us +1 influence every time we win 1,000 fights
- Give us +1 influence every time we help 100 friends

Additionally, offer +10 to max influence for 10 godfather points.

Just my 2 cents!

With the release of episodes 3 & 4 came just one new business - the Munitions Trading Camp:


One thing to note is that with each higher tier of the Moscow businesses, the return on investment decreases. To elaborate, the Munitions Trading Camp cost around 3x as much to fully upgrade compared to the earlier episode 1 & 2 businesses but only produces twice as much cash, so choose your upgrades carefully.

I also did not notice any new achievements yet associated with Episodes 3 & 4 - perhaps they will add some in soon.

More combat items from mastering episodes 3 & 4:


For mastering Episode 3 (Brigadir):

Ex-KGB Bodyguard (armor): 48 attack, 30 defense

For mastering Episode 4(Avoritet):

Cossack Armored Vest: 18 attack, 48 defense

More Moscow information soon - check the Mafia Wars Guide homepage for updates. I must say though, these items are exceptionally poor rewards, especially given Moscow's difficulty. For example, Ex-KGB Bodyguard is barely better than the Shturmovik that is just a regular drop from vory in episode 4(by the way, the Vory vs Mafiya page is updated to include episode 4). Hopefully they will surprise us with a New York-like reward for finishing off episode 6.

Mafia Wars Moscow Vory or Mafiya Part 2; Strategy Guide

As many of you have noticed (and commented about), with the release of Mafia Wars Moscow episodes 3 & 4, we got hit with a couple of nerfs.

Bank Heist job only gives 15 XP / 8 energy now with an 11% mastermind/wheelman and private island (Old: 17 XP / 8 energy).

The "Run Illegal Poker Game" job now gives 38 XP/17 energy with an 11% mastermind/wheelman and private island (Old: 41/17).

Now, these two nerfs I understand - these jobs paid out very well very early in the game and were definitely a bit out of place. In fact, I am okay with this, and it was about time really. However, the following nerf just blows my mind:

Shipping Company: Now produces Political Favor boost which offers +60 Robbing Defense skill. (Old: Fake Documents which offered -9 job energy cost).

Seriously? Robbing is not even in the game anymore and you are adding new robbing boosts?

Even if it was still in the game, or is going to be re-implemented soon, this boost is a reward from a racket in the jobs category, despite the fact that there already a set of rackets specifically dedicated to defense. You would think that +defense boosts would come from the defense category, but not this time! Defending your non-existent property (since people that have rackets don't have property) is an integral part towards completing more jobs apparently. I can only imagine how the development meeting went down to come up with this change:

Dev 1: So, rackets, what's the feedback on rackets looking like?

Dev 2: According to the official forums, about 99 in 100 people hate them.

Dev 3: Yeah, they're really unpopular - the only good racket is the Shipping Company one.

Dev 2: We better nerf it to bring it in-line with the other terrible rackets to really piss everyone off.

Dev 3: Agreed. We should make the boost something terrible just to annoy people who were mad that we took away robbing.

Dev 2: A brilliant idea Johnson! How about another worthless +robbing defense boost? That way we can snub our fanbase by not only taking away the only good racket, but also serving them with a painful reminder that they no longer have access to robbing.

Dev 3: We can sneak the change into the Moscow patch and hope no one will notice.

Dev 1: Sounds like a plan - /highfive's all around! Nerf gun fight, anyone?

Mafia Wars Moscow Vory or Mafiya Part 2; Strategy Guide

Here is the differences between Vory and Mafiya for the latest edition of Mafia Wars Moscow. For information on episodes 1 & 2, check the episode 1 & 2 Mafiya vs Vory link.

Episode 3 (Brigadir)

In episode 3, the only differences between Vory and Mafiya occurs during chapter 2. I once again included a mod so you could see XP:energy ratios. This time, I also made sure both characters had 15% bagmen. Here are the screen shots of the job tiers:

Mafiya Episode 3, Chapter 2:

Mafiya Episode 3, Chapter 2

Vory Episode 3, Chapter 2:


Unique Loot:

From the "Steal the Bank President's Car Keys" job (Mafiya Only):

Volk Luxury Sedan is Mafiya Only

From the "Use the Bank Guard's Keys To Access the Bank Armory" job (Vory Only):

Taiga Combat Shotgun is Vory Only

Conclusion

Neither tier (once again) is particularly better. The Taiga Combat Shotgun is just completely terrible though, while the Volk Luxury Sedan at least is decent. Other than that there is no distinguishing features between the two sides.

I honestly thought the tiers would diversify a bit more and have more than a job difference as more parts of the expansion came out. I guess feedback (read: mass panic over which side to pick) must have scared the developers into making it little real difference. Oh well, always episodes 5-6 to hope for! Keep on eye out on the Mafia Wars Guide homepage for updates.

Episode 4 (Avoritet)

Here are the differences for Episode 4 between Vory and Mafiya.

Here is the Mafiya Episode 4, Chapter 2 job tier:


..and the Vory Episode 4, Chapter 2:


Unique Loot:

From Mafiya only "Arrange The Sale Of Weapons-Grade Explosives" job:

The Opel Armored Helicopter is Mafiya Only

From the Vory only "Rob a Troop Convoy":

The Shturmovik is Vory Only

Conclusion

Ding ding ding, we have a winner! For episode 4 it is clear to me that Vory far and away is better than Mafiya. The Shturmovik is an 11 attack upgrade over the Guerrilla Squad, while the Orel Armored Helicopter is only a 2 defense upgrade over the Private Jet or Armored State car.

Additionally, the job that drops the new helicopter in the Mafiya pathway requires an Untraceable Cell Phone, while there is no consumable cost for the Vory pathway.

There is one catch though - it is possible in Episode 5 or 6 that the Shturmovik will be upgraded while the Orel Armored Helicopter will not - it is a risk you will have to take (unless episodes 5 and 6 come out before you finalize episode 4). I'm not afraid to make the risk - it is only a 2 defense upgrade; I'd rather not go through all the trouble of collecting a couple thousand untraceable cell phones to get a measly 1-2% defense upgrade, especially since if these helicopters are not replaced in episodes 5 and 6, they certainly will be replaced in next expansion. Vory all the way for episode 4!

Here are the new collections and boosts released with the Mafia Wars Moscow Episodes 3 & 4:

Episode 3 (Brigadir)

Russian Leaders Collection: +4 Attack
Items in set: Medal of Gorbachev, Medal of yeltsin, Medal of Brezhnev, Medal of Kruschev, Medal of Putin, Medal of Stalin, Medal of Lenin

Boost: Political Favor (+60 robbing defense skill)

Seriously? +Robbing defense skill? Even though robbing is not in the game anymore?

Episode 4 (Avtoritet)

Vodka Drinks Collection: +4 Stamina
Items in set: Cosmopolitan, Screwdriver, Sex on the Beach, Bloody mary, Black Russian, White Russian, Soviet

Boost: Liquid Courage (+44 attack skill)


That is it for these 2 episodes. More info to come as I get it!

Mafia Wars Moscow Episodes 3 & 4 just went live, earlier than was expected. I guess they are going with that whole under-promise and over-deliver thing.

At any rate, there's 2 new episodes up: Brigader (Episode 3) and Avtoritet (Episode 4). They also added new equipment, 2 more businesses, collections, and boosts.

And look, even an upgrade:


Armored Briefcase (armor): 25 attack, 36 defense. It is from the "Map Out The Escape Route" job in Episode 3 (chapter 1). It is available to both mafiya and vory if you are wondering.


My Impressions

Wow, I knew it was going to be expensive, but I had not planned on this!

On my high-end account, I played through the entire first tier of Episode 3 as Mafiya (could not use my boss timer because I used it earlier to get money / xp as a repeat) so I went over to Episode 4. I got about halfway through before running out of cash. I had about 160,000,000 Rubles saved up as well - in retrospect I should have been more diligent about this.

Rubles are the new blackmail photos - the only thing stopping me from progressing through the tiers is that I have to spend all of my energy getting more money!

One thing to note is that in Episode 4, the payout for jobs increases a lot. If you are having trouble with funds, try to unlock Episode 4 ASAP rather than trying to work through Episode 3 all three times. "Manage An Escort Service Catering to Soldiers" pays out $714,840 Rubles for 98 energy (with a +15% bagman).

Due to the high costs, the info might take me a bit more time to gather, but I will post is as I get it!

If you have been playing Moscow at all over the past couple of days, there is one thing that really stands out: you need a lot of Rubles to get through the content at a reasonable pace.

If you have a high level energy-based account like outlined in the Mafia Wars Leveling Guide, I would recommend selling as much of your inventory as you can when you finish the first two chapters. My original energy account is now done the content, and after selling my extra inventory (leaving just enough inventory to do a high-paying job), I ended up with around 45,000,000 Rubles.

That is a lot of cash.. and the second chapter is 2-3 times more expensive than the first. If trends continue, players will need millions of Rubles to get through the content. New York money was essentially worthless, money is somewhat tight in Cuba, and you simply need a lot of cash to get through Moscow, no way around it.

My educated guess is that Chapter 3 will not be available for two more weeks. So, to keep your bribes down, as soon as you finish the first 2 chapters, sell off all your inventory save a few pieces and start loading up on rubles. In the long run (i.e. over a week) you will have made your money back that you lost by only getting half price for your items. If you stock up 100,000,000 Rubles for Chapter 3 & 4 release, you will in great shape when they come out.

Here are the new achievements for Mafia Wars Moscow:

Rossiya Matushka: Earned by traveling to Moscow.

Pank n' Spank: Earned by defeating Dmitri Leonov.

Edit (thanks anon user):

Only 2 achievements that I've seen so far - I'll keep an eye out for new achievements.

Overview:

All in all, Moscow is pretty similar to early Cuba. Money, although you get more of it for jobs, is still very tight, and you will have to end up repeating jobs to buy the items to complete the next tier.

There are two primary differences:

One is that one job and the boss fight in each tier have a "Get Help" button attached to them. The one job is very inefficient, around 1.3ish XP/energy cost. For level one mastery, you have to do the job 34 times to get through, for level 2 mastery, 50 times, and for level three mastery, 100 times (3%/2%/1%). You can "Get Help" on the job and completely skip it if enough friends help. The catch? You can only do this once every 24 hours. However, if you have an energy account, you can still power through it. In fact, if you have an energy account, I would recommend it - money is so tight you will need to repeat jobs anyway just to get the items for the next tier.

For example, on my energy account I powered through that job both at level 2 and 3 mastery in episode 1 and I had just barely enough money to buy all the items for Episode 1 and Episode 2.

The boss fight works a similar way - during the first and third level masteries, you have to click a "Get Help" button to do the job. You can only do this once every 24 hours. The downside? Well, you can not power through it and you can only do it once every 24 hours, so it takes at least 1 full day to master the first job tier, another couple days to master the 2nd episode, so on and so forth.

Jobs:

So here are some pictures (click to see full size) detailing the first set of jobs if you pick Mafiya (I did!):



So, as you can see, the EXP ratios are similar to starting out in Cuba. Also interesting is that for the first few jobs you need New York items. There is some consumable use in Moscow; you need a Dossier on Dmitri (found by doing the Buy Mafia Intel on Dmitri) to do the final job (Hospitalize Some Nationalists) leading up to the boss fight. Was not really a road block though, I did the Dossier job a few extra times when I needed money to reach the next tier.

Right now, there does not seem to be much of an advantage in choosing sides. I guess the job mastery rewards could be different, but we will not be able to tell until a full 24 hours passes from Moscow release so someone can complete a tier.

Other New Things:

There are new collections, businesses, and items. I will cover those in additional posts so that I can link to them and make them easy for everyone to find and see rather than lumping it all in one post.

Here is a list of the new collections and boosts in Mafia Wars Moscow. There is only 2 so far because they only released 2 episodes.

Prison Tattoos Collection (Baklany Episode): +6 Defense

Items: Rose Tatto, Church Tattoo, Star Tattoo, Spider Tattoo, Tiger Tattoo, Skull Tattoo, Crucifix

Boost: Temporary Tattoo (+42 Fight Defense Skill)


Matryoshka Dolls Collection: +7 Energy

Items: Natalya's Doll, Olga's Doll, Oksana's Doll, Svetlana's Doll, Tatyana's Doll, Anastasiya's Doll, Ekaterina's Doll

Boost: Hidden Matryoshka (-20 job energy cost)

In Mafia Wars Moscow, businesses work a lot like they did in Cuba. So far there are three businesses. Unlike Cuba, they are unlocked as you progress through the story. You can buy the cigarette business after you unlock the third chapter in episode 1, and you can buy the Black-Market Car Lot after you unlock the third chapter in episode 2. Here are the businesses (text & pic):


Unlicensed Taxi Stand: You get this just by going to Moscow. Earns 15,000 Rubles every 3 hours.

Cigarette Smuggling Ring: Purchasable after unlocking Chapter 3 in Episode 1. With no upgrades it produces 30,000 Rubles / 3 hours.

Black-Market Car Lot: Costs 3,750,000 Rubles, purchasable after unlocking Chapter 3 in Episode 2. With no upgrades it produces 60,000 Rubles / 3 hours. Fully upgraded it produces Exotics and earns 336,000 Rubles every 3 hours.

Will update as more chapters are released!

For this weekend only, as I am sure you have seen, there are 8 pieces of limited edition tiger loot to be found in game. These items drop completely randomly from fights and jobs. Here is the list:

Weapons:

Pro's 2 Iron (nice Tiger Woods reference): 24 attack, 12 defense
Tora Assault Rifle: 28 attack, 12 defense
Siberian Tiger: 36 attack, 14 defense
Liger: 45 attack, 12 defense

Armor:

Tigerskin Armored Vest: 12 attack, 30 defense

Vehicles:

Le Tigre: 26 attack, 15 defense
Tigershark Submersible: 37 attack, 18 defense
Tiger Tank: 18 attack, 43 defense

Pictures:


With that said, turns out there are two good items here, the Liger (45 attack weapon) and the Tiger Tank (43 defense vehicle). Don't worry about trying to collect these in large quantities though - I am pretty sure that these items will be outdated by the later Moscow episodes.

As you progress through the chapters in Moscow, you have to make a choice between siding with the Vory or the Mafiya. It appears that you can freely choose whichever side you want each Episode; you can side with the Vory in Episode 1 and then side with the Mafiya in Episode 2. Here are the known differences between the two tiers, broken down by Episode:

Episode 1, Baklany:

In chapter 2, there is one job difference between each side:

The top job, Collect the Ransom, is Vory only, while the Collect the Hit Payoff job is Mafiya only. Here are the two different items possible from this job:

The Cherepakha Compact is Vory Only.

And the Molotok Pistol is Mafiya Only.

As you can see, the only difference in Episode 1 in choosing a side is if you want access to a bad vehicle or weapon. The Mafiya pathway costs more money (you need 6 Takis which are 1,000,000 Rubles) while in the Vory pathway you only need 3 Taksis (you need 6 Mototsyki which are only 500,000 Rubles a piece). On the other hand, The Mafiya pathway is more efficient (1.71 xp per energy vs 1.68 xp per energy). It really makes no difference.

Update: This is the job mastery reward for episode one for both Vory and Mafiya, so really for the first tier there is no significant difference between job paths.

And yes, another combat item... /yawn.

Episode 2, Boets:

There are more significant differences between the path you choose at this stage, although it does not seem to make too much of a difference yet:

Differences in Jobs:

Vory Job Tier

Mafiya Job Tier

Differences in Loot:

Vory Only Loot

Mafiya Only Loot

Well, as you can see, not too much of a difference. The vehicle is a little bit better than the weapon, but if you have a fleet of Track Loaders / Hu-9's / Armored State cars, it does not matter.

There are different jobs between each tier that you can see in the pictures above. One thing to note is that the differences in payment between jobs is potentially due to differences in bagmen between characters. One main difference is that Vory is required to use Concealable Cameras to work through Episode 2 does not have them required. Other than that, it is too early to call until we see if the job mastery reward items are different (I am guessing they are not).