The subject of countless memes, Mafia City is nevertheless one of the more interesting resource management, troop-wars-style games on the market. Level up your Mafia empire and do battle and appreciate the stylish babes while destroying your enemies on the battlefield.

Mafia City is a game that’s larger than itself. The game’s marketing department was behind a number of very pervasive advertisements around 2016. You might remember these – they featured a number of zany situations, followed by the statement “That’s how Mafia works.” Another, less memorable format concentrated heavily on different “levels,” with text over the heads of characters saying things like “Level 35 Mafia Boss” as various situations played out on screen.

For better or for worse, this is the legacy of the game. You’ve likely encountered one of the hundreds of memes that began to circulate based on this format, whether it was a nonsensical statement emblazoned with a solid stamp of “That’s how Mafia works” or an image with two characters, one labeled as “Level 1 (something)” and another labeled as “Level 100 (something).” Mafia City didn’t invent the concept of “levels,” but its influence was surely a factor in modern trends in YouTube thumbnails and other media today.

As for the game itself, Mafia City is a 2016 freemium game that focuses on upgrading structures, managing resources, and sending troops to attack things. If you wanted to be impolite, you would say that it’s a bad Clash of Clans knockoff. There are certainly a number of differences between Mafia City and Clash of Clans (or Evony, or King’s Choice, or Last Fortress, or any of a hundred other similar games), but it uses the same basic gameplay paradigm. You log in, do some tasks, and then allocate your resources to various upgrades and activities that take hours or days of real-time to complete.

Mafia City definitely shows its age. Its UI and art assets aren’t awful by any means, but they feel low-quality and cluttered compared to more modern offerings. The game’s combat is complex and arcane to newcomers, with a multitude of unit roles and a cavalcade of stats that interact in obtuse ways. Various 3D segments, including minigames, are particularly dated. While the game’s animated 2D assets look comparable to modern games, the 3D models look pretty awful when compared to other mobile games.

If you’ve seen the ads, it’s worth noting that Mafia City does NOT resemble the 2016 advertisements that launched the memes. The ads suggest that there’s an open world to explore and do stuff in and that you’re free to have nuanced and arbitrary interactions. This is very much not the case. Instead, you’ll spend most of your time staring at a screen that’s packed full of icons that indicate your Mafia empire, bouncing back and forth between them in order to maximize your resources. 

Mafia City is an interesting game these days. The developers have added and refined lots of content, so it’s definitely different from when it launched. The prices on in-game purchases have also been overhauled. Whether that’s a good or bad thing will depend on the type of player you are. If you’re not opposed to spending $30 a month on a mobile game, you’ll get a lot farther in Mafia City than you would have in 2016. On the other hand, it’s also a lot easier to get sucked into the trap of spending money, so if you’re trying to keep your mobile games free-to-play, you might prefer something else.

Mafia City allows you to transfer resources between different accounts. Most experts suggest making at least three accounts to start with. One is your “main,” one farms cargo, and the third farms cash. On the two auxiliary accounts, focus on skills and upgrades that boost your ability to generate the respective resources. Ignore everything else. Every so often, log in and send all of the stuff you’ve made to your main!

Like other games in the genre, you’ll want to log in every day and join a clan of players you enjoy interacting with. It’s better to find fun clanmates than good clanmates, but the best clan will provide both! Meanwhile, logging in and doing daily tasks will give you lots of resources in very little playtime. Try not to spend too much time in-game past this point unless you’re having fun, as your playtime will yield sharp diminishing returns.

Are you a Mafia City fan? Do you think of yourself as a Level 100 Mafia Boss? Who are the best Babes in the game right now? The best troop setups? Let us know in the comments below!