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For more detailed information, check out MadMacs's guide at the Zynga forums.
Here's the basics.
Types of minions
| Level required |
Type of minion |
Blood per hour |
| Level 1 |
Bum |
100 |
| Level 1 |
Park jogger |
400 |
| Level 1 |
Escaped mental patient |
500 |
| Level 5 |
Cop |
2,000 |
| Level 9 |
High school football team |
7,000 |
| Level 12 |
Blood bank nurse |
12,000 |
| Level 15 | Paramedic |
15,000 |
| Level 17 | Diner waitress |
18,000 |
| Level 19 | Group of ninjas |
20,000 |
| Level 22 | Mime |
24,000 |
| Level 24 | Hacker |
25,000 |
| Level 28 | College fraternity |
65,000 |
| Level 32 | Bank teller |
80,000 |
| Level 35 | SWAT srike team |
150,000 |
| Level 40 | Law firm |
200,000 |
| N/A |
Psychic minion |
30,000 |
Notes
-- You get a trophies for buying the following minions: 5 escaped mental patients; 10 college fraternities; 20 law firms.
-- You'll probably find you're struggling for money until you get the psychic minion. The psychic minion is the second prize available from the Crypt. Open four locks, and get up to three psychic minions.
Only buy minions in groups of 10
Every time you click on a button to dominate a minion, the price goes up. So it's cheaper to buy 10 at a time.
(You won't be able to follow this rule when you're just starting out.)
When releasing minions, release all at the same time
If you bought them in groups of 10, it works out that you get all your money back if you release ALL at the same time.
Which minion should you buy next?
Should you buy a minion right now, or should you save up for a more expensive one?
Basically, you want to invest your money so that, at any time, you're getting the highest rate of return. You should NOT buy the same amounts of all minions.
The easiest way to work out what to buy next is to set up an Excel spreadsheet.
1. Create three columns, and fill in the data:
-- Name of minion
-- Blood per hour
-- Cost
2. Fill in the data under those headings.
3. Create a fourth column, and label it "Rate of return". The formula for this column is blood per hour divided by cost.
4. Create a way to custom sort the columns.
-- Right click anywhere on the table.
-- Select "Sort".
-- Select "Custom Sort".
-- Make sure the box "My data has headers" is checked.
-- The first thing you want to sort by is rate of return. Sort it on values, and sort largest to smallest.
-- You'll also want a second level. Sort then by cost, sort on values, and sort smallest to largest.
-- Click OK.
5. Buy whatever is listed at the top of your table.
6. After you've bought that minion, enter the new Cost, and run the Custom Sort again.
Note
If you know you're going to be away from VW for a while, it might be best to buy as many minions as you can right now, even if they don't give you the best rate of interest, because otherwise your money will just lie around without being invested.
How to get extra energy? There's two basic methods: the boring ways, and the even more boring ways.
Boring ways
Go up a level and get your energy replenished. Spin Mandy's wheel, and hope for some energy. Watch the news feed for other people's Mandy spins. Click on mystery gifts from the Collector that are published to other people's walls (sometimes these give you energy). Buy energy refills from the Collector. Click on ancient chests that are published to other people's walls (sometimes these stock extra energy or refills).
I should mention... Zynga has recently removed the limit on the number of refills you can get through gold, red, and black mystery boxes each day. So, if you can persuade your friends to send you a lot of boxes (or if you have a lot of baby vamps)...
Even more boring ways
Get an energy refill through being voted tempting or tasty... It used to be the case, up till January 2010, that you could get unlimited amounts of refills per day from votes. So people literally spent hours a day trying to get other people to vote for them, and the people who used bots grew fat and happy.
Now that this has been limited to one per day, I dunno if it's even worth doing anymore. But if you're really keen, here's some ways to get voted.
1. Voting the feed. The time-honoured tradition of voting all the clan members who have posted something in the news feed in the past few hours (since there's a good chance these people are online).
To get them to vote you back, you'll basically have to stick a comment in their comment section. (I'm skeptical that drawing a line and saying "Everyone below this line has been voted" achieves very much.)
Even if they don't vote you back, maybe you'll get a warm glow because they're your clannies and you're helping them out. Awww.
2. Writing on the feed. Every time you do something worth posting about, stick a message on your news feed. Other (blood)suckers will vote for you. Guaranteed.
3. Develop a relationship with some vote buddies. Look at your comment section, vote for everyone who's voted for you, and leave comments announcing what you've done, implicitly inviting them to an endless game of tasty-tag.
The more complicated version of this goes: actually keep a list. Don't just vote for the people who've left comments lately, but keep records of everyone who reliably votes you back.
4. Vote lists and refill stations. Many clans run voting lists -- add your name to the mailing list, and make sure you vote for everyone else on the list -- that sort of thing.
A variation is: stick your name on the discussion board wall.
There used to be a lot of groups specifically set up for this, and then the Facebook powers that be cracked down hard on them.
5. Vote surfing. This is one of the best methods if you're into the whole voter ping-pong thing. Basically, it goes like this:
-- While you're using any of the other methods, and voting on person A, check out their comment section.
-- The odds are good that person B, who has just left a "Tasty as always" in person A's comments, is a voter, and is online.
-- Surf over to person B's profile, give them a vote, leave them a comment.
-- Read person B's comments, and -- can you believe it? -- person C has only a minute ago left a message saying "Your blood is delicious". The odds are good that person C is a voter and is online.
-- Surf over to person C's profile.
-- Etc. Etc.
-- Variation: Start making a list of (and visit) everyone who recently voted and commented on person A, then everyone who recently voted and commented on person B, then everyone who...
The potential drawback, though, is that you'll soon run into people who aren't in your clan, so it'll cost you 1000 blood per comment you leave.
Some ideas on how to get a bigger clan...
1. All of the "add me... invite everyone" type groups. Simply do a Facebook search for these using the words "vampire wars".
Stick your message on the wall, and then invite everyone else who's stuck their message on the wall.
Guaranteed clan, and guaranteed tedium -- flicking back and forth between screens, back and forth, back and forth...
Do this daily.
2. The "Add me" thread at the official Zynga VW forums.
3. Sooner or later, someone will send you a request to join a vampire group. Many of these groups run "pimp lists". So, simply ask to be added to the list.
If your group doesn't run such a list, ask the group admins for help anyway.
If you can't find such a group, drop me a message and I'll link you to a couple.
4. Write a message in the social section of your VW news feed. "In desperate need of more clan. Please pimp me out. Here's a link to my profile", etc.
5. Friend suggestions from Facebook... These might actually be the fastest way. It kinda goes like this.
-- Start a new account to play Vampire Wars with, so you don't confuse your real friends with your fangy friends.
-- As you get more connections, Facebook will start giving you friend suggestions. If you and your suggested friend have at least two mutual friends, the odds are good that they play Vampire Wars.
-- Simply send them a friend invite with "Would you like to join my Vampire Wars clan?" as the message.
-- Pretty soon, you'll have so many connections that you'll be getting suggestions where you and your potential invitee have hundreds of mutual friends... Now, if you have hundreds of friends in common with someone, the odds aren't bad that he/she plays Vampire Wars -- but the downside is that the larger their clan, the less likely they'll be a help to you with Mandy spins and gifts.
-- Once you're around 2000 clan, you'll be getting over 10 friend requests/suggestions per day without doing anything. The main problem then is that Facebook has a 5000-friend limit...
Okay, there's something called the "golden army". No idea where the name came from (and I don't know if it's a reference to Hellboy 2), but it's used in this guide by MadMacs, and it refers to having:
501 x Superior horrific transformation (150,300,000 blood/hour
[ Click here to read more ]
Vampire limericks (for a competition with Belladonna's }{aven clan): --
There once was a plucky young trucker
[ Click here to read more ]
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. A couple of months into the course there's an audition -- you stand up in front of the class, and deliver a speech, and answer questions as to why you should be given any position that you're going for -- producer, director, cinematographer...
Comment by Nonymous
on Longhand vs typewritten
Philosophy Blog
I think I'd have to say typing, though, for the reason that you give. My feeling is that typing is to such extent the norm throughout the business world that handwritten would seem unprofessional or eccentric.