Italy Region 4: MILANO

Italy Region 4: Milano is all about Gate Loot, a concept explained in detail in the prior entry on Region 3: Venezia.

To summarize, Gate Loot is an item that drops in one job and is needed to do a later job. You dealt with this in New York when you looked for the 60,000 Untraceable Cell Phones needed to complete the city.

Milano has two essential pieces of Gate Loot: Smart Phones and Cooked Books. In fact, if you look up "Milano" in an Italian-English dictionary, the name translates loosely to "City of Smart Phones and Cooked Books." Well, not really... but for Mafia Wars purposes, it might as well.

The Smart Phone drops frequently in Milano's first job (Free a Professional Assassin). You are going to need scores of Smart Phones because they are Gate Loot for TWO jobs in Milano itself:

Bug A Confessional (Energy Path)

Infilatrate a Seven Star Hotel (Fight Path)

The Smart Phone is ALSO Gate Loot for *THREE* jobs in Region 5 - Napoli.

Best of all - you guessed it - you cannot (yet) gift, trade, or Wishlist a Smart Phone.

Sound confusing? Use this Italy Gate Loot Flowchart to visualize how the Smart Phones and Cooked Books are acquired and used in Milano and Napoli.

Stock up on Smart Phones before you level up in Milano! You will likely need close to 1,000 Smart Phones to complete the *FIVE* different jobs that use them as Gate Loot all the way to Ruby Level in both Milano and Napoli. The more Smart Phones you earn at lower energy costs (i.e., Bronze Level), the smarter you are.

Same advice goes for Milano's second key Gate Loot item: Cooked Books. Two jobs in Milano drop Cooked books: Blackmail a Track Official (Energy Path) and Interrogate a Lackey (Fight Path). Fortunately, you can use both energy and stamina in Milano to stock up on the Cooked Books.

An upcoming post on this blog will have an Italy Gate Loot flowchart, showing what jobs drop and require each type of Gate Loot found in Italy.

Milano Village Property: Milano's Property Job (Rob a Collector) opens your fourth Italian Village Property, the Auto Boutique. (shown below in its humble, Level I condition).

As you upgrade further, your Auto Boutique will look like this at Level VI:

You can see the completed Auto Boutique by clicking here.

Motor Oil is the unique part needed to upgrade your Auto Boutique, comparable to Volcanic Bricks, Wine Barrels, and Fishing Nets for your other Village Properties.

Milano Drop Loot: Milano's items have stats with a combined attack/defense in the mid-70s to mid-80s, but a Weapon and two Animals are here that will make your top 501 in all likelihood.

*Marsican Brown Bear* (Animal)

*Milano Foil* (Weapon)

*Eagle Owl* (Animal)

*Maglietta* (Armor)

*Diavolo Piccolo SMG * (Weapon)

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Milano Boss(es): You will face the Volovino Twins - renowned car dealers - in the Milano Boss fight.

In Milano-Bronze level, the Volovino Twins (acting as one) have 1,800 health and no henchmen. Not a difficult fight.

Your reward for defeating the Volovino Twins is the Italiano Gazzeti, a Vehicle with nice attack AND defense stats.

In Milano-Silver level, the Volovino Twins increase their Health to 2,700 ... or is it 4,000? Either way, easy to beat.

The Silver-level Auto Elettrica moves up to 108A/80D stats:

At Milano Gold level, your rivals move up to 12,000 Health.

And the Gold-level Auto Elletrica has 139A/89D stats.

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Milano Strategy Tip: When you get to Region 5 - Napoli, you will see how many hundreds and hundreds of Smart Phones and Cooked Books you go through. If possible, stay at Bronze Level in Milano as long as your patience will allow, building up stockpiles of the Smart Phones and Cooked Books.

I finished Napoli's Ruby level before I took on the Silver-level Volovino Twins, just to keep the Smart Phones and Cooked Books cheap.

In Milano's Silver Level, a Smart Phone will cost you 65 energy points, while a Cooked Book will set you back either 75 energy or 39 stamina points. The costs are much cheaper at Bronze level - and start to get prohibitive at Gold level. Naturally, you want to get to Napoli, but remember that racing through now will slow you down later, when you need to complete a stockpile of - by my estimate - close to 1,000 of each.

At some point, whether you've followed the advice above, ignored it, or done half of each, it's time to move on to Region 5 - Napoli.