Unlike the ads, Mafia City isn't a 3d game where you make tough decisions, it's at first a run of the mill pay-to-win clan war game.
If you ever were too inactive or lazy, just tap 'redo city' because you'll never catch up in that particular server, they almost always start you off fairly though but if you're unlucky enough to start bang in the middle of a period where a server isn't 'overfull' and there aren't enough to justify opening another you'll be a straggler so if you notice you're waaaay waaaay behind anyone, just ride it out and get a feel for the game then start a new server when the option comes (if you just start anew there and then, you're probably ending up in an even worse city where you're even more behind the curve).
The reason I recommend this game is that unlike the other clan war games I've played, this has legitimate, fully viable ways for an 'addicted' free-to-play gamer to catch up with and snowball a freely bought VIP upgrade as well as then using the privileges like a second building queue to their advantage enough to genuinely out-compete or equally compete with the average pay to win player. You will never truly be top of a server if you aren't a pay to win hardcore type but you can genuinely maintain a high rank in a server for a long, long time (servers don't last forever but they last many months making the grind worth it, I think it's like up to 8 idk).
I have played one or two other clan war games and they not only throw you in the deep end but their 'flexibility' is actually very deceptive. Mafia City's simplicity is in fact its strength (there's only one direct means by which to pillage others and you can't hijack the pillaging army during, you can only defensively defend your own clanmember or alternatively sacrifice them and attack the attacker preemptively but that's usually the worse option as you first want to make their attack itself fail and their forces significantly deplete). You have constant daily missions guiding you on what to do and when. You don't need to follow it to play 'correctly' if you're pay to win or hardcore grinding but it helps to abide by the quests that come daily because the rewards are absolutely generous and add up to equal having paid a full 5 dollars for upgrades over just 3 days of properly abiding by it vs that.
I have never ever come across a clan war game where if you are dedicated and observant enough you can genuinely be on equal footing with hardcore pay-to-win scrubs. When I say pay to win, I respect that they fund the game's production, of course, but when someone literally pays 100 US dollars' worth to stampede past 2-2.5 weeks of hard work in-game, in a server that's fresh and where their lead then lets them snowball their clan hard there comes to be a level of 'hmph'.
Interestingly, though, the game's design is very clever, there's become a culture of 'don't unnecessarily pick on the noob clans' among the higher clans and it's enforced within the clans by either kicking the member full out or letting the member be attacked by the other clan first and then warning them (but the latter won't usually work if they messed with a noob clan).
It's a very fair culture in the game, I don't feel the same as in other clan war games at all, the culture seems to be that the big dogs pick on each other and any little league clan is kind of ignored and left to compete on their own level in the outskirts of the map as they please. This is largely due also to the fact that the game doesn't 'kill' newer players' armies as much it just wounds them and also it pays out only 50% what you'd naturally earn from a player if it feels their level is too low compared to yours.
There's many nerfs and structures in the game that make it a very healthy balance between an individual adventure and social gaming.
No, I wasn't paid to write this, I just truly feel this game is on another level in terms of clan war games.
