If you want to be competitive in Superhero City then you're going to have to purchase as many wearable items and Merit Abilities as you can afford.

Wearable Items:

A wide array of wearable items are available for purchase in Superhero City. These items will give the wearer various increases in their stats, much like in RPG video games.

All items are divided into 3 categories - amulets, bracers and rings. A player can only wear 1 amulet, 2 bracers and 2 rings at any given time. This limitation creates a strategic opportunity however. For example, while one particular amulet might give you a large attack bonus, a different amulet might give you an equally large defense bonus. And so the strategy you want to employ here is to equip attack based items only when you are actually attacking other people. The rest of the time you should be wearing defensive items.

Another strategy is to further refine what you have equipped by wearing 2 of the same rings and 2 of the same bracers depending on whether you are attacking or defending. So instead of wearing 1 ring that gives a 50% attack bonus and one that gives a 75% attack bonus, simply buy (and equip) 2 of the 75% rings to maximize your bonus.

The list of available items in Superhero City will change from time to time. The ones that change most frequently are those that cost Merit Points to buy. These items come in finite quantities and once they are bought up they are gone. Regular items will stick around much longer and will usually just have an item or two added to the list depending on the season, like a Christmas themed amulet or whatnot. These items are not as powerful as the ones that cost Merit Points though.

Merit Points:

As was just mentioned, the most powerful wearable items in Superhero City are those that cost Merit Points. They come in limited quantities and are very expensive. Compared to top-notch Merit Abilities, which can cost 40-60 Merit points, these particular items can cost well over 100 Merit Points. Their bonuses are so large though that they are well worth buying. The only problem is that unless you're willing to buy Merit Points with real money, it will be quite a while before you can afford them.

Assuming then that you won't be buying Merit Points, it is best if you concentrate on obtaining Merit Abilities as they will give you the most bang for your buck.

These super powers differ from the regular Attack, Defense and Movement powers in two different ways. First, they cost Merit Points to buy. Second, they are much more powerful than regular super powers.

Merit Abilities come in 3 different categories or "classes" - Alpha, Gamma and Omega. Alpha Class abilities are the cheapest and least powerful. Gamma comes in second and Omega is first, being both the most powerful and the most expensive.

There will be 3 of each class on sale at any given time, with a 15% discount if you buy all 3 together. So in terms of saving, it makes sense to wait until you can afford to buy all 3 together.

Waiting is not always practical however, and buying a Merit Ability whenever you can afford it is never a bad idea.

This brings us to what NOT to buy with Merit Points. Aside from Merit Abilities, there is a small list of luxuries that are available for purchase. These include a Fight Refill (5 Merit Points), Energy Refill (25 Merit points), Extra Team Member (10 Merit Points), $10,000 (10 Merit Points), and finally, the ability to change your hero's name (1 Merit Point).

All of these are, to different degrees, a waste of hard-earned Merit Points and should be avoided in most cases.

Fights refill pretty fast on their own at the rate of 1 every 30 minutes. Plus, friends can send you free boosts to refresh fights. Energy as well refills rather quickly and like fights, can be refreshed by free boosts.

An extra team member is never worth it because they can never be as powerful as a real player on your team. Besides, real Team Building is more effective and most importantly, FREE!

As for spending 10 Merit Points to get $10,000 worth of in-game cash, that's just a joke. Money is easy to come by in Superhero City through fighting and by completing missions.

The ability to change your name could come in handy though. And because it's cheap, makes for a bargain if you're in need of evading your enemies.

At the end of the day however, if you want to be as competitive as possible in Superhero City, then Merit Points should only be used to buy Merit Abilities and wearable items.

Unlike trees in Farmville, Treasure Isle's store-bought trees don't produce any goods, experience points or money. They're purely for decoration.

The trees that are important are the Gem trees that you'll find on your and your friends' islands. There is one per island, and the color gem that it bears is automatically decided for you when you first start playing Treasure Isle.

Make sure you visit your friends' islands frequently to harvest gems, especially if theirs produces a different color gem than yours. You'll need an assortment of them to open gem gates later on in the game.

Team Size:
In Superhero City, the larger your team is the more powerful you become.

When battling other players, every person on your team will have their stats automatically added to your own. This gives your overall Attack, Defense and Agility stats a huge boost. So recruit as many of your friends as you can.

Team stats can be viewed by clicking the Stats tab. There you will see your individual stats (Player Stats), and under that, your Team Stats.

Increasing Team Size:

The easiest way to increase the size of your team is to recruit your friends. You can do this by either inviting them individually or by recruiting on your Facebook Wall. By clicking on the My Team tab, you can access both of these options.

Recruiting your own friends has its limitations however. It’s unlikely that all of them will actually want to play Superhero City. The other thing is that you might not have a huge list of friends to begin with.

To get past this problem and to grow a large, powerful team, you should recruit other SC players.

In the top left corner of your screen (above where it shows your current level), click on the “Forum” link. This will take you to the Superhero City forum, where you will see at the top of the page the Official - Add Me thread.

What you want to do here is post a simple message that basically says, “add me”. So when other players who want to grow their own team see this, they will add you.

You can also add people you see in that thread of course. It works both ways.

The only downside to adding strangers is that you must first add them as a Facebook friend before adding them to your team. This creates a real privacy issue, as you probably don’t want total strangers snooping through your photos and correspondences.

The easiest way around this is to accept their friend request, then quickly jump into Superhero City and add them to your team. Once that’s done, jump right back out to their profile page and remove them from your friends list. This will stop them from being able to snoop around, but it won’t affect their status as your team member.

To do this, accept the friend request like normal, then open up Superhero City. Once there, click on the My Team tab and accept their request to join your team. Then, go back out to their profile page and scroll down until you see a link that says “Remove from Friends” near the bottom of the page on the left. Click it, confirm, and you’re done.

Mafia Wars: Cuba Business Guide Tips and Tricks

When I was making the decision on what to write for my next Mafia Wars post, the idea to write a Business guide to cover the new ways of earning money from Cuban Businesses in the Mafia Wars expansion into cuba popped into my head. At first glance, the Businesses might seem quite simple and straight forward. However, there are many tips and tricks that can effect your rate of return and progress in regard to Businesses in Cuba. Have doubts? That’s understandable. I have pooled together and calculated some valuable information to help you progress through and thrive in the new Mafia Wars: Cuba expansion. Read and become informed.

How Mafia Wars: Cuba Businesses work

Although businesses in cuba are 100% different from the properties in New York, they are quite simple to understand. Also, it is easy to see why Zynga, the creators of Mafia Wars, decided to use the new business structure for Cuba rather than the properties from New York.
When you go to cuba in Mafia Wars and then to the business page, the game displays the following information:

“Each Cuban business can be purchased once and produces crates of a particular product every 3 hours. Once the crates are produced, they will be stored in your warehouse, ready to be sold for a profit.”

There are a few main things that I would like to highlight about businesses in cuba.

Crates are earned every 3 hours and must be sold in order to earn a profit. (unlike New York where money is earned ever 1 hour)
If crates aren’t sold, they will build up until you reach your capacity. Crates will not be produced while you are at maximum capacity.
To earn maximum profit, business upgrades should be done in a specific order (outlined in the upgrade section below)

As mentioned earlier, it is easy to see why Zynga decided to redesign the money making system for Mafia Wars: Cuba. With the new system it is necessary to login on a regular basis and sell the crates that your businesses produce in order to earn money. The old property system in New York (original Mafia Wars) allowed players to earn money regardless of their logging into the game. This lead to money being devalued and subsequently useless at higher levels.

Best Mafia Wars: Cuba Business investment

Unfortunately I upgraded my main Mafia Wars account too quickly through the Cuban businesses and did not gather the required information to calculate which business in Mafia Wars: Cuba is the best investment. However, based on initial cost and selling price for the full capacity of each of the fully upgraded businesses, the Tobacco Plantation offers the best cost to income ratio.

Mafia Wars: Cuba Business upgrades

Your Cuban businesses can be upgraded in the following ways:
Quality (5 levels) – your business will produce a higher quality product every three hours, allowing you to sell each crate for more pesos; quality upgrades cost twice as much as quantity and capacity upgrades.
Capacity (10 levels) – your business can store a larger quantity of crates in the warehouse.
Output (10 levels) – your business will produce more crates every 3 hours.

Examined:
Quality upgrades for businesses in Mafia Wars: Cuba change the name of the product being produced and also increases the price that you sell the produced product for.

For the Tobacco Plantation:
Tobacco > C$4 / crate (Base)
Cigarillos  > C$5 / crate (upgrade cost: C$3,200)
Panetelas  > C$6 / crate (upgrade cost: C$3,600)
Coronas > C$7 / crate (upgrade cost: C$4,000)
Perfectos  > C$8 / crate (upgrade cost: C$4,400)

For the Sugar Plantation:
Gold Rum  > C$12 / crate (upgrade cost: ?)
Dark Rum  > C$14 / crate (upgrade cost: C$8,000
Anejo Rum  > C$16 / crate (upgrade cost: ?)

For the Factory:
Car Stereos  > C$? / crate (upgrade cost: ?)
Tires  > C$? / crate (upgrade cost: ?)
Suspensions  > C$? / crate (upgrade cost: ?)
Frames  > C$? / crate (upgrade cost: ?)
Engines  > C$? / crate (upgrade cost: ?)

For the Coca Field:
Pure Coca  > C$80 / crate (upgrade cost: ?)

Capacity upgrades

Capacity upgrades increase the number of total crates that can be stored for each Mafia Wars: Cuba business. This upgrade is only useful if you find you are not able to login to Mafia Wars often enough to keep all of your produced crates from reaching the capacity.

Information will be populated as I obtain it. If you can fill in any of the blanks, or know where I can gain the information.. make a comment and let me know. Thank you.

Output upgrades

Output upgrades are quite important. These upgrades will increase the number of crates produced every three hours. When you first obtain a business, its output may be 100 crates / 3 hours, with an output upgrade, this number may increase to 120 crates / 3 hours.

Upgrade order

It is important to note that because Quality upgrades increase the price each crate sells for, and Output upgrades increase the number of crates produced every 3 hours, that each of these increases the benefit provided by the other. This makes it possible to determine the best upgrade order for each business.

Thanks for reading this tips!

We're not huge proponents of spamming non-gaming friends with invites/gift requests but in this case, having an extra friend around may mean more than just a handful of additional coins each day. Since, as mentioned earlier, each friend will be assigned a Gem tree, you'll be dependent on them to provide you the necessary Gems to unlock certain areas of later islands (unless of course you want to shell out real currency to purchase Gem packs).

And of course, there's also the added bonus of XP and coins just for visiting daily.