Mafia Wars 'Declare War' Feature: Everything you need to know

Mafia Wars Declare War
Our favorite mobster RPG game on Facebook, Mafia Wars, is more of a series of skirmishes, fights and robberies than it is a war between mobs. Zynga wants to change this with their updated Declare War feature, which allows players to settle disputes with anyone--rather than stabbing our friends in their backs like before--in timed matches using their Top Mafia members.

Take a look behind the break to learn how to master this updated feature and dominate your turf.
Mafia Wars Top Mafia
First things first, you'll need to be at least Level 8 to have access to this feature, which unlocks the Top Mafia option when looking at the My Mafia page. Top Mafia, first introduced in 2009, is a feature that allows you to choose six of your best mobsters to fill key positions in your mafia for extra bonuses. However, certain positions can only be filled by players with specific character traits, so here's the breakdown:

    Mastermind (more XP from jobs): Any character
    Wheel Man (reduced Energy usage on jobs): Fearless only
    Button Man (increased Attack): Maniac only
    Bodyguard (increased Defense): Any character
    Safecracker (more money from fights): Any character
    Bag Man (more money from jobs): Mogul only



To make sure you have the absolute best Top Mafia, be mindful of your friends' stats when choosing them for one of these six positions. For example, it's best to choose a friend who has completed the most jobs to be your Mastermind as it implies he or she is a high Energy player and will net you a ton more experience. The same idea goes for the rest of these positions; a Maniac in your mafia that has won the most fights would be the best choice for your Button Man, and so on.

After you've chosen your Top Mafia, you can finally declare war on any mafia you would normally fight by going to the Fight page. Next to the option to fight a mafia member should be a button that reads "Declare War." Remember to judge who you're about to declare war on based on their level and mafia size. Clicking the button will automatically take you the war page, though a pop-up will appear suggesting you to ask your friends for help. This is no time to play the lone wolf, so just ask 'em.
Declare War ask for help
You'll now see both yourself, your Top Mafia and the opposing player with his Top Mafia hiding behind silhouettes. To make things a bit more challenging, you'll have 16 hours from the start of the war to wipe out each of your enemy's Top Mafia members and eventually knock out your opponent. To seek out your friends' help, just click the button above your portrait to post a news feed on your wall.

Clicking on any one of the six mystery combatants will result in you either defeating that mafia member or you being defeated. It seems currently that you can only personally attack one Top Mafia opponent before your friend's help out. While this can slow things up rather quickly, if you could just attack every Top Mafia member yourself, that would trivialize the experience to the point where you would be better suited to just fight other mobsters.

Declare Wars Reward
In the middle of the page you'll notice item rewards accompanied by a question mark. These are the rewards that leader of this war will win, with the visible reward being one of the more common and the question mark being a rare reward only to be revealed when the war is won. At the bottom of the screen is the reward that your Top Mafia members will win for helping you if your team should come out victorious. There are 16 rewards in total and if you manage to collect them all from either starting wars or helping your friends out, you'll receive the "Warlord" achievement.

If you'd like to help your friends in war, just look for a post on their Facebook feed to the tune of "Joe Shmoe needs your help in a War." Click through and you'll be taken to their war page where you can attack your friend's opponents. However, there seems to be a potential error in the game currently that when your friend helps one of their friends in a war, you will be asked to help out, which isn't possible. Mafia Wars Maniac claims that this issue is a bug, but it does make sense that you wouldn't be able to help a friend of a friend in a War. Come on, mafias are more cliquey than that.

Now you're ready to hit the battlefield, but remember that can only declare one war at a time and have just one declared on you. Make sure to beef yourself up with some extra weapons, items and friends before going to battle, because this time everything counts.