The Modern Hippy Male

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.

1. 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)
2. 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.
3. 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:
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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:
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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.

Upgrade order for the Tobacco Plantation

1. Output
2. Output
3. Quality
4. Output
5. Quality
6. Output
7. Quality
8. Output
9. Quality
10. Output
11. Output
12. Output
13. Output

View my other Mafia Wars posts!

Question:
How much would it cost to have a website like craigslist.com designed?
I want to create a classified ad type website similar to craigslist that would be nationwide but would be limited to specific industry related products. It would be membership based with a monthly, qtrly or annual fee to list items but free to search. But it would also have to be city or zip code search able. Like craigslist, it does not have to be fancy or with a lot of graphics. Photos can be added by the ad posters if desired.

My Answer:
It would be expensive.

However, I would ask if you have considered the effort to which you would need to go to, from a marketing standpoint, and the costs necessary to make a site anywhere near as popular as craigslist.org. This could quite possibly end up being more expensive then the design of the website to begin with. As you can read by visiting criagslist, they started as an email list of San Francisco events as a hobby by Craig Newmark in early 1995. They were then allowed to identify and fill a large niche that existed for free classifieds. This is what allowed them to skyrocket in popularity.

I do notice that you would be targeting a niche within the classifieds community, focusing on industry related products. But, are these products not already allowed on craigslist? If they are, what incentive would people have for paying to list with you, when they can list with craigslist for free?

As a Web / Graphics Designer with my own sites, this is one of the steps I have to go through when determining if it is feasible to continue with a specific business plan.

This is not intended to discourage, only to inform and provide some information based on my own schooling and findings.

Question:
How do you get something off Craigslist?
I’ve found a few good deals on craigslist and wanted to make an offer but the seller never gets back to me or returns any emails. I’m not sure if i should just wait or if i’m doing something wrong. I’m just afraid that by the time he responds or gets the message, he won’t be selling it anymore.

My Answer:
This is somewhat of a common problem. In fact, if you live and are searching in an area which has a lot of craigslist users, it’s more of a first-come-first-served thing.

I’m a freelance Web / Graphics Designer and I have been using craigslist to find work for awhile now. One of the best ways I have found to get the jobs is to be one of the first to respond. I wrote an ebook on a technique I used but never attempted to sell it, instead I posted it to my blog. I have listed the url to the post in the source section.

Also, if what you are looking for is a popular item, you may have some competition in the form of other people looking for the same ads. In this case the more quickly you respond to an ad the better. Keep in mind also that if you offer a lower price than what they are asking, and someone else has emailed and is willing to pay more, you may not get a reply as the seller is busy delivering his item and collecting his money.

In the end, it comes down to luck, speed, and your offer.

I hope this helped.