EA's The Godfather II® Creative Director, Mike Perry says "It's All About the Made Men"

All families, including yours, have two types of men in the family:  Made Men and Associates/Guards.  Associates are low-level members of the family, and are paid on a daily basis.  They are hired to guard rackets and businesses.  Families with a lot of income can afford to hire as many guards as they can afford.

Made Men are special, as they form the backbone of a rival family's strength.  Each family has a group of Underbosses, Capos, and Soldiers, who can each do one of three things:

1) Attack or Bomb businesses: Only Made Men can attack a rival's Racket or Front.  Often they will bring Associates along for support, and they'll always try to send as many Made Men as it takes to "do the job".

2) Defend businesses: If an Associate can get to a phone in time, they can call Made Men to "reinforce" their defense during an attack on their business.

3) Guard businesses: Made Men can stay at a Racket to help Associates guard it from attacks.  And they'll always defend their family's compound... if they're alive to do it.

Made Men are strong.  Soldiers are at least 5 times more powerful than an Associate in battle, Capos and Underbosses even more.  You don't want to see Made Men "reinforcements" when you are attacking their businesses, and you don't want to see them attacking yours.

Because rival Made Men are so powerful as both an offensive and defensive force, a winning strategy includes permanently eliminating them.  That means doing Hits.  A Hit is when you kill a Made Man using a special "Kill Condition".  Normally, if you drop a rival Made Man, they'll recover at the hospital and return to attack you later in the game.  But if you learn and use the Kill Condition, you can eliminate a Made Man permanently, which will irreversibly weaken that rival Family.  Each Made Man has a special Kill Condition, such as "Execution with a Shotgun", or "Clubbed with a Baseball Bat".  You can do Favors for people throughout the game to learn all of the Kill Conditions.  I'll talk about Favors more in another blog post.

And remember this: If you don't do Hits on rival Made Men, not only will they continue to attack and defend businesses, but they'll be waiting at their compound when you try to attack it.  Hits are optional in Godfather II, but a wise Don will keep his friends close, and his enemies closer.  Do Hits, and wipe your enemies out... for good.