When starting the game, there is a choice of which family to join. It is possible to change families later on. The 5 families are:
There are no specific bonuses for picking any certain family, but they are ranked by the amount of territory controlled by all the players in the family, giving a bonus of up to 4% on resource production. You can only join a crew with others in the same family and there is a chat channel specifically for each family.
There is also no particularly best family to join. Corleones are in many cases the top families on servers, but that is by no means true for all. On different servers, the same family could be in 1st, in the middle, or in last place. It is all up to you to decide which one you like best.
Note: All comments below by players are their personal opinions. You may read them if you wish to help your decision.
Family Change[]
You can now purchase a family change in the Store. Players can change to any family they chose, except the top family on each server. They currently cost 395 [[[Diamonds]] but may go on sale from time to time. Family changes are also available for free in the bundles that all players receive after their server merges.