There are three types of Fights:

• Rob: Attack a player to damage a property and win a cash bonus. Players are limited to a Mafia size equal to their own level. The Defending player loses no health. Cash reward varies by property type and quantity owned. (1-3 xp per Rob)

• Hitlist: Attack a player on the hitlist for a bounty. The Defending player loses health even if below 20 and until they are killed. (1-6 xp per Hitlist)

• Basic Fights: Attack a player. If the player is above 20 health, they take damage and can lose up to $100,000 per attack. If an attacker wins money, they gain $65,000. Defenders below 20 health will see not see additional attacks (called Ghost Attacks). (1-6 xp per Attack)

How Fights are Won
Old Fight Formula

In August 2009, Zynga updated the Fight Outcome Formula. The old formula used a combined stat formula to determine the outcome of a fight. The old formula was as follows:

COMBAT STRENGTH = (MAFIA * (ATK + DEF Skill Points)) + EQUIPMENT (ATK + DEF Total Value of All Items Used)

This formula weighted your skill points and Mafia size very heavily. Combined with a 501 Mafia, a single skill point was the equivalent of 501 points from Equipment (roughly 8x TNT). The new fight formula dramatically increases the amount of contribution from Equipment relative to Skill Points.

New Fight Formula

While quite a few tests have been done to determine the revised Fight Formula, the exact formula has yet to be determined.

Here are the important things that we CAN tell about the new formula:

• Zynga no longer combines the Attack+Defense on Equipment. If you are Attacking, only the Attack value of your equipment will be used in your Combat Score. Likewise, when you are Defending, only Defense value will be used.

• Zynga no longer combines the Attack+Defense score of your Skill Points. Attack is only used for Attacking and Defense is only used for Defending.

• Equipment value plays a much bigger role in determining the outcome of a fight than with previous formula. Depending on your level, this has been measured from as little as 600% to as much as 8300% more contribution.

• Skill points become increasingly more important as you progress relative to your overall combat rating. BUT — due to the Equipment value change — not nearly as important as under “old” formula.

• Ties go to the Defender.

Mafia Size

The single biggest contributing factor is Mafia Size. The bigger your mafia, the more fights you can win. So if you don’t have a 501 mafia, that’s the #1 thing you can do to improve your combat score.

Having a larger Mafia means you can bring more equipment to a Fight. Attack and Defense values from Skill Points also appears to be modified favorably by a larger Mafia.

Rule of thumb is that if your Mafia is bigger, you will win even if you have very few points invested in Attack or Defense.

Diminishing Returns on Equipment

One theory that would explain why Equipment seems to become less valuable as players progress is that it suffers from Diminishing Returns.

The basic idea being that the first 5,000 points from equipment provide more incremental benefit than the next 5,000. In other words, you would expect 10,000 points to be twice as effective as 5,000 points. But due to DR, it may be only 50% more effective.

The net effect is that “skill points” become increasingly more important relative to “equipment” points the more progressed you get in the game.

Mafia Strength

One common misunderstanding is that the Attack and Defense values shown on the Fight page and Inventory pages represent the total Attack (or Defense) value you bring to a fight. In truth, it only represents the value from Equipment.

Zynga describes these values as the total equipped offensive (or defensive) power of everyone in your mafia. Up to 501 mafia members and hired guns help you in fights, each using a weapon, armor, and vehicle from your inventory.

In other words, adding 10 skill points to Attack will not raise the value shown in the above image. Adding a new loot item which has 10 more Attack points will raise it by 10 points.

The actual contribution from skill points is a “hidden” value that is not shown to your opponent. If you lose to someone with a lower Mafia Strength, then their hidden value from skill points must be higher than yours.

Investing Skill Points into Attack or Defense

Spending skill points on Attack will make you better at Attacking. Spending points on Defense will make you better at Defending. According to Zynga’s previous fighting formula attacker’s attack & defense state had a huge implication on fight since it used to multiply with the number of mafia you have(maximum 501).The items had less implication on fight.But according to new fight formula the items has much more contributions on determining the winners of the fight than personal attack & defense state of a player.

Of course, since you CHOOSE who you are attacking, a lot of people would argue that Attack isn’t all that important to them (because you can always find someone you can beat and bookmark them).

By contrast, you don’t get to decide who attacks you — particularly if are on the Hitlist a lot. So in that respect, improving your defense means you will WIN more fights that you don’t initiate.

Although the other argument is that most players Attack far more frequently than they Defend. Therefore, having more options in who you Attack and what you can do with your Stamina is more helpful.

And finally, there is the school of thought that Attack and Defense don’t matter much at all. The idea being that if you find yourself a couple of low Mafia whipping boys to Fight, that you can use your Stamina exclusively on them. You will lose fights initiated against you, but proponents of this strategy would argue that these are few enough and infrequent enough not to worry about.

Ultimately, how YOU want to play is entirely up to YOU. There is no wrong answer.But one thing you got to keep in mind ,if you have less member in your mafia than your opponent,you have the maximum possible probability to loose unless you have the huge amount of good items in your inventory than your opponent.So try to maximized your mafia size(501) as soon as possible.