Update 04/10: Major rework removing the UNAP part

None of this is committed development and there's no timeline for it. The overall goal of these changes is to make it easier for clans to recruit and keep players. It also provides a base to add additional functionality in the future.


Player Registration:

Players will be asked for an initial country name during registration. They will also have the option to join a random clan (see 1)) which is checked by default. Upon confirming their email address they will automatically have a country created on the Alliance Server.


New functionality for clan admins:

1) Clan admins can allow countries to join the tag without the tag password if their tag has 3 or more countries in it. This setting can be changed but defaults to off.

2) A clan admin can specify other tags as DNH. This is a private, one-way action intended to prevent accidental hits. Your own tag is automatically included in the DNH list.

3) Clan admins can restrict attacks and harmful spy ops made by their members at the country level. The default option is "probation". All options:
a) Probation: Can only attack or harmful op NPC countries
b) Trusted: Can only attack or harmful op countries not in DNH tags
c) Unrestricted: Can attack or harmful op any country

4) Clan admins can restrict their members from sending FA at the country level. The default option is "no FA". Possible options:
a) Cannot send FA to anyone
b) Can send FA to anyone

New rules for tagging:

1) If a country leaves a tag it cannot attack, do harmful ops, or join another tag for 72 hours.
2) Untagged countries have the option to join a random clan that allows for joining without the tag password.
3) NPC countries are identified ingame but are not marked in the ranks feed (happy to change this if a third party site owner requests it).


Here are a few scenarios to better illustrate what I'm trying to achieve with these changes:

* A friendly netting alliance wants to grow their alliance as much as possible without worrying about player skill. They allow all countries to join and use the country settings in 3) to prevent their new members from causing trouble. The worst outcome is that a new player finishes with a poor NW.

* A bad actor joins a clan with the intent of causing trouble. The clan admin is able to use the member role settings to prevent the bad actor from doing damage. The bad actor detags his country but is killed by other clans before the 72 hours is up.

Any constructive feedback is welcome, but I'm especially interested in any possible loopholes.

Two things, Slag.

1. Is the clan admin marked somehow, so that people know that's who you have to spy to get that clan diplomacy detail?

2. Why is everyone against suiciders/terrorists/lone wolf surprise attacks? It's used as a derogatory word, and I honestly don't understand it. I kind of feel like it's a valuable part of the game/experience.

1) The clan admin is not marked.

2) You're asking why someone doesn't want their country to be attacked by terrorists? Doesn't that question essentially answer itself? It isn't fun to be on the receiving end of the suicide and the only way to truly counter it is by proactively killing anyone who might be a threat.

I would suggest a two tier GDI system. One for individual players and one for the clan that are separate but interconnected.

1. Player A decides to attack clan B.

Clan B can now declare war on player A but the rest of the clan still has GDI protection.

2. Player A is killed by clan B

Clan A can now wage war on everyone, clan B has broken GDI, not just the player.



If a player is marked as a traitor/kill by clan B then it shouldn’t break GDI for clan A to kill. This would allow some level of political goodwill.

Or you know… buying defense works too. Turrets, tanks and SDI exists for a reason.

Right. I'm asking why, in a war game, where the main focus on the game is buying war units, why you want to take away more ability for people to start fluff and get into fights?


Take me for example. My entire time here can be summarized as a sh1t starter. Ive suicided. I've build an alliance that warred a bunch. I infiltrated alliances. I got teams to attack each other, thinking they were someone that they weren't. I've suicided some more.


A lot of people hate me. And that's cool. But I'll go out on a ledge and say that I'm tremendously valuable to the game. I've created a lot of reasons for people to just... do stuff. To hold meetings, to arrange kill runs, to engage in diplomacy, to talk trash on the forums and engage in propaganda.


People may hate me, but I think having people you can hate is unquestionably good for the game.

What I'm saying is that taking away the ability for sh1t starters to be sh1t starters is bad for the health of the game, overall. And I think demonizing suiciding is a bad idea.

To put in in other words, Slag.


One of the things I would think you would want more of in this game is engagement.


My playstyle, and others like me, create engagement. That is GOOD for this game.


Josey Wales and Cat doing what they are doing this set. That's very very good for the game. And your changes make their playstyle impossible.

I'm sorry, but let me say one more thing.


The way that a small alliance can compete with a big alliance is through the asymmetry of war. That includes engaging on their terms, being able to hide, and choosing the time and place for the battle, initially.


Your changes take away the advantages the small teams have, and provide all the advantages to the larger alliances. Large alliances already have the vast majority of the advantages. Why do we want to give them even more?

So, you asked for input to make the game better on another post???
Looks like you already had your own opinion. So why did you even ask??

Decent, giving the defending clan FS ability is nice. Protection from harmful ops without war. Halfway protection from suicides.

Suicidal, why assume bad faith? How is that going to help anyone? No, I did not conceive of these ideas ahead of time. They were formed after carefully reading all of the feedback in the other thread. Nothing written here is in stone. You are more than welcome to make a suggestion as to what changes are needed.

Right up until the people suicided on quit the game, because they've put a huge effort into doing well, only to effectively be trolled because an individual quote "wants to start fluff".

Do you want alliances to simply start killing a 1 man tags and and players playing untagged off the bat OOP for their own security?
That doesn't benefit or grow the game either, it just drives more people away.

Drow - You're going to have people quit either way. Either cause they couldn't get rank 1, or cause they couldn't fight, or cause the game got boring, or because it was too easy, or because it was too hard.


In the 30 year history of Earth, you've had suiciders. Are you telling me that suiciding is why the vast majority of people quit? If not, then how can you blame the player retention problem on suiciding and suiciding alone?


Without the actual data, I don't think you can say suiciding will cause more of a player decline than the lack of combat. I think at best, all we can do is speculate.



That said - let me try to make my point another way.



Something earned is greater than something given freely. There's actually really interesting research on this topic with primates, where what the researchers found is that the primates would prefer to earn/work for their reinforcers, as opposed to being given them freely.


I view net worth similarly. I think that earning a high NW in an environment where people can try to deprive you of it, will be more rewarding and reinforcing than earning a high NW in a game that lacks interaction, conflict, and struggle.

Additionally, for all the people who aren't motivated by 'winning' with NW, the entire point of the game is the conflict. So by removing key aspects of conflict, you're removing key aspects of the game for 'the other side'.


Unless you can tell me this game should be made solely for people who want to net, I find it difficult to consider the argument that we should remove key aspects of the game that half of the player base relies upon and utilizes.


I completely understand that having your set 'ruined' by a suicider is no fun. But may I suggest an alternative way of thinking about that?


Maybe you should consider your set was ruined, but rather than you made mistakes in your playing method that led to you being vulnerable to suiciding, had a bad roll of the dice, and ultimately succumbed to one of the key game mechanics and elements that makes achieving a high NW challenging. But - you'll have next set to try again, and you can employ different methods in an attempt to navigate the gauntlet that is the 1A server.



Or - alternatively, I suppose ya'll could just continue to remove combat from the game. But I promise you, in the long run, that will make the game more boring, less challenging, less rewarding, and ultimately lead to even more player decline.




You want interaction, conflict, engagement, strife. Some of these suggestions do the exact opposite of that.

I played this way one time with a group of other fellows. We netted like maniacs hidden amongst other clans and then once we were massive, we "warred" the entire server, I like to think it created a little splash. Of course people hated me and others for a while, and I paid my penance being beaten down for several sets.

So I do see your point. I like to think we weren't your low brow griefer, after all I was not called "Earle of Grabs II" for nothing! It was only small sideshow in the long history of earth, but for a brief time we were the antogonists that unified the server. There was some actual RPG for once.

That being said...

I know what it's like to be suicided, it sucks and I don't like it any more than the next guy, I doubt I'll ever do it again.

I think these are just the emergent properties of the way the game is set up. Im not sure they can be "fixed" by changing the game.

I like the sound of the new changes, and I think it will be interesting to see what kind new behaviours emerge! Both desirable and undesirable.

Why is it impossible for them to recruit other members to their cause, engage in diplomacy with other clans, or to create some other kind of scheme that allows for them to accomplish their goals?

If there are some players who just want to fight without worrying about politics I recommend participating in the upcoming Single Combat server. That server will automatically create 1v1 fights for you and you can show everyone how good you are at warring.

Slagpit - simple answer, because this game has like 60 active players.


A decade ago, when there were 1000s of players on a server, anyone would have any opportunity to recruit for their clans and to build a 5-10 man clan, relatively easily.


Today. If you recruit a player, you are most likely stealing from another alliance. There are only so many players to go around.

Sounds like I need to create better incentives for clans to recruit members and to make it easier to integrate new players into existing clans?

Slag - another thing.


You keep discussing politics. If we want to make a real world parallel here for our discussion, throughout history, countries have had to deal with 'suiciders' if you will. Small groups that can make life very difficult for large groups.


Getting back to EE. Why are suiciders and small entities not considered in the diplomatic paradigm? You talk about clans needing to engage in diplomacy, but gloss over the need for clans to engage in diplomacy with suiciders. Why isn't it incumbent upon the clans to deal with suiciders if they don't want to get suicided? Terrorism is a part of politics, in real life, and in this game.


I don't think it should be removed.

Well I suppose you could do that. But again, why?


Why shouldn't there be an inherent danger for all netters? At any point in time, if they don't have sufficient defenses, they could be vulnerable?



I don't think it's good for the game that you can just join the biggest alliance, and get naps with everyone, and because of that, you are completely invulnerable to ever getting attacked.


That risk and possibility of being attacked is important. And if I'm being honest, I think this game could use MORE suiciders.


You wouldn't have people breaking NW records. But new records/expectations could be set. Instead of getting 3bil NW with 0 turrets, it'd be an accomplishment to get 300mil NW because everyone is getting attacked at all times, and you did the best at growing your economy, limiting how much you got attacked, and dealing with suiciders.



Isn't that like, literally, what EE was built to be?

We have 15 years of data on this subject. How can a clan engage in diplomacy with suiciders if they can't identify them ahead of time, the suiciders don't respond to messages, and the suiciders have nothing to lose?

I also don't see where suiciding was removed? No one else is saying that. Another player's conclusion was "Halfway protection from suicides."

Clans already sign UNAPs with each other. There are 18 tags in the current round. I think that you're underestimating the difficulty of signing 17 UNAPs with other clans. I expect that some tag admins will refuse to sign.



No, the game was not built to be that way.

Slagpit,

Please remove humanitarian penalties. We are running into issues where suicide restards are bottom feeding.

Removing that restart bonus is a huge improvement. While you're at it, maybe remove the county: country DR mechanism when hitting bots too. It's a huge advantage for alliances who figure out formula but it makes it very difficult for a person to differentiate their country significantly from competition.

BH - you've written a ton, so I'll just respond at a high level. You talk about the benefits of earning a reward: if someone wins the top spot because everyone else got suicided worse than them, does that feel legitimate? Griefing adds in a factor of randomness that many would argue removes the importance of skill, which makes it less like earning and more like luck that you survived.

For all of your other points, I don't think your arguments are as persuasive as you think. You can still create engagement and conflict without making people feel bad (to Ugolino's point). I'd wager the war groups would be happy to have a bit more engagement, which seems like a win-win?

Tertius -

People say that poker is luck too, but somehow the same players consistently finish high in the world series of poker every year.



It may seem like luck to 'avoid' the suiciders. I would argue that's actually skill, diplomacy, nuance.




Slagpit -

My mistake. I didn't play decades ago. I just envisioned a game where it was the wild west. Everybody was attacking everyone. And it was a real fight to get to the top. And nobody got there without some blood on their hands.


I kind of thought that would be more fun than getting to the top by playing a mostly solved game. Everyone has the formulas, everyone knows the best strategies. Yea, there is skill in knowing the formulas BETTER, than everyone else. But the randomness, the unknown, that makes people have to pivot and think on their feet. You can't follow a playbook after you get punched in the mouth. To me, that seems like more skill?

And those poker players fold a ton of hands that don't have the numbers to work - people don't want to "fold" two month sets repeatedly (though certainly you see that the longer you play, the more likely you are to get a top spot, say in tourney, express, or team, where there's a lot less formulaic approaches - which is nice because players have a choice of which server(s) and how they want to play).

Blackhole, this isn't intended to solve all of the gameplay problems on the Alliance Server. It's intended to be a compromise. I'm generally hoping for a grudging acceptance from players.

The Express server used to be along the lines of what you're describing. I created a country there as a test and got randomly ABed by four different countries. Some players enjoyed that kind of chaos but a lot of them didn't.

Have you tried playing on the FFA server?

Oh, right. By all means. Change the rules on demand to suit the cry babies.

We were after one country. That was it.

You brought War upon yourselves. This is a War game.

You want to save your next set? Let us know if you want to come to the table. We’ll expect 100% groveling from all the Terrorist that ruined our netting set.

And Tribute.

And Superfly’s country reduced to ashes before the end of the set, by both Merca & Evo.

Otherwise it’s Total War à la Sun Tzu and Machiavelli both rolled into one.

I told you: None of you will net in peace ever again.

That is, unless you Submit, Bend The Knee, and Kiss The Ring.

As well as supplication from the riff-raff, mealy-mouthed, hillbilly, inbred leadership of mercs, sol, & sof…. worthless protoplasm.

Choose your penance wisely.

I love the fact that this is a War Game.

Your Future Emperor.

Josey Wales

Slag - I'll say this. I'm in favor of changing things up, experimenting, opening servers. And broadly speaking I'm supportive of most of your ideas.

I think the one thing that makes me nervous is making changes that make it even harder on smaller groups of players than it already is.

I don't think that's true across the board? Here's a three member tag that got a top ten finish last set: https://www.earthempires.com/alliance/85/clans/OMEGA

I don't know your particular circumstances in detail. It sounds like you have a small group of players who made enemies out of most of the server and don't have any allies. It's the worst possible situation to be in from a diplomatic point of view. I am comfortable with those clans having a difficult time.

I'm not talking about me specifically. I'm just talking about the dynamics of warring. Netting, a solely person can do nearly as well as 40 people.


In a war, there is no contest. Numbers rule the roost when it comes to any conflict in this game.


What I'm saying is that your proposed changes take away the element of surprise and the ability to choose the time and place of battle, for the smaller group. That is one of the few advantages they enjoy in combat. Almost all other aspects of combat favor the team with larger numbers.

This thread is how I feel with all of you in the dm's.
It is like being a parent of ......nvm you get my point.

Slagpit: Bless your poor heart .

Humanitarians change very good too

Slagpit,

Yes. Please remove the humanitarian blocks so that we can hunt, kill, roast, and eat high NW Terrorist countries.

Far from 'begrudging' I whole heartedly welcome them!

I think it's better than running the same formulaic netting Strat(s) every round and micro-optimising, keeps things fresh.

I think someone else mentioned this, but for the netters, I'd like to see variance in the govt bonuses. Maybe a random +/-50% on one/some/all of the bonuses. (e.g. +15% Food Production becomes +7.5-30%, -25% max PCI becomes -12.5% to -50%). You could keep the essence of the govts the same.
Some resets particular strats might get lucky and be totally buffed, some resets they might be totally nerfed.

On a superficial level people might flock to the buffed one, but that in itself creates an environment where that Strat starts to become weaker.

If rep PCI got buffed, and fascist oil got nerfed, you might see bunch of rep cashers, and fewer than normal FFO with some interesting market effects, Then if Theo got 100% pop bonus at the same time food is gonna get crazy, as techers try to take advantage of a cash rich market...

Stuff like that. I think that keeps it fresh. Removes pure formulaic approaches, adds a little chaos.

Or if you wanted to get wild you could have an ever changing political background in which global geopolitics churn over time as political interests wax and wane, with the New Earth Order issuing decrees that cause political upheavals, or other such imaginary RP type events that hint at the slightly unpredictable shifting bonuses as the set progresses...

Invisible market forces due to interplanetary trade buying and selling on the public market...

All countries on the server being part of a continental exploration and as server wide total land increases encountering new and powerful bot countries that are added to the scores list as the set progresses, with a penchant for top feeding. No need for suiciders, you have big bots that like to grab fat defenceless countries (and accepts retals... usually!). Does your netting clan take the hit, in order to outgrow other netting clans, or do you proactively kill the bot preventing further grabs but giving other netters an advantage...

Sounds like hell, lets do it!

The removal of restart bonuses will basically make wars less competitive. Any restart will take significantly longer to be able to effectively re-enter a fight and war activity will die off far quicker.

Wars between small tags have far different dynamics than wars between 50-100 member tags.

The reasoning behind getting rid of the restart bonus is that we would be implementing the "sleep hours" concept mentioned elsewhere and there would be fewer surprise FSes, so it's easier to keep your country alive. As far as I understood the original intention of the restart bonus, it was to make people feel less bad that their country was suddenly killed. Is it truly necessary to keep even with the changed rules? I'm open to feedback on this subject. It's very hard for me to tell what's going on, especially because there apparently weren't any real wars this round.

I am against the restart bonus because the majority of players are not active wallers. It’s better to let dead players restart with a respectable country than have them quit entirely after they die.

I changed the restart bonus part. That acceptable?

I think the sleep hours idea, as cool as it is, is a bandaid to fix the problem of keeping a country alive. I'll talk about myself personally, I'm not getting up in the middle of the night. And if people attack me during the work day, alerts or not, I have an important job. I'm not dropping one I'm doing within 40 seconds to wall.

I'm also not going to hop on to wall while having dinner with my wife. Or while at the movie theater.


Essentially, when kills can happen in under 60 seconds, the only way you can effectively wall is if you're willing to make EE a super important part of your life, and prioritize it above other things like children, wife, work, hobbies, food, fluffting on the toilet, etc.


Personally, I think it'd be really cool if you couldn't 'kill' a country. You could maim it, and continue to maim it, to knock it down. But you can't kill it and destroy 75% of all of it's fluff because it wasn't able to get online to wall.

Radical idea though, I know a lot of people love the walling aspect of the game. Personally, I hate it. I've done it. It's not fun, IMO.

fluff this sideline bullfluff

Go slap together the CoOp netting server. Xtra bots (that retal)

Nothing else matters alliance will become a warzone for anyone and everyone. You want to net risk free? Slags (t)werkin on it!!

I can think of few more convenient times to stonewall.

1) Clan admins can allow countries to join the tag without the tag password if their tag has 3 or more countries in it. This setting can be changed but defaults to off.

Comment: Seems a little backwards, if you allow this for clans with 10 or less it may encourage additional clan creations.

2) Two clans can mutually agree to not exchange any attacks or harmful spy ops ("UNAPs"). This is unbreakable and lasts the entire set. It isn't possible to make this agreement if there have been recent attacks or failed harmful spy ops between the two clans.

Comment: How many uNAPS would be allowed? Seems like this would weaken LDP/FDP’s that currently trump uNAPS


5) Clan admins can restrict attacks and harmful spy ops made by their members at the country level. The default option is "probation". All options:
a) Probation: Can only attack/op NPC countries
b) Trusted: Can only attack/op countries not in DNH tags
c) Owed Reps: Can attack/op any country not in a UNAP tag
d) Traitor: Cannot perform attacks/ops and can be attacked in any way by any country on the server. Cannot be changed once this role is selected. Traitor status is visible to all countries via country search.
e) War: Can only attack/op war targets or traitors
6) Clan admins can restrict their members from sending FA at the country level. The default option is "no FA". Possible options:
a) Cannot send FA to anyone
b) Can send FA to anyone

Comment: This seems very problematic to me. Gives clan admin way too much power over the individual players countries. There are disagreements with players and their alliance leadership all the time, allowing them to restrict your actions and not even having the option to leave due to rule 2 in tagging is a definite NO GO. THIS WILL KILL THE SERVER

7) Clan admins can declare war on another clan that they do not have a UNAP with. The war declaration happens immediately if there have been landgrabs or failed harmful spy ops from the target clan in the past 48 hours. The defending clan has the option to start the war immediately by issuing their own war declaration. Otherwise the war starts 48 hours after the attacking clan made the declaration. Countries cannot perform special attacks without an active war, with the exception of countries branded as traitors by their tag admins. During war, all attacks and spy ops types are permitted between the two clans (the country level setting is ignored). Attacks on traitor countries cannot be used to start a war.

Comment: Was good until you started talking about limiting special attacks unless you have an active war. There are conflicts which a single country warrants being maimed or killed due to their actions but not necessarily a need to war with the whole tag. Another over reach trying to install a big brother into the game.

8) A clan war only ends if both sides mutually agree to a UNAP.
Comment: Makes Sense




New rules for tagging:

1) Player countries cannot play turns unless they are in a clan.

Comment: No problem with this.

2) Countries cannot leave a clan willingly.
Comment: Extremely bad idea. If you can’t play turns without being tagged why would this even be necessary. Seems like this is to prevent a workaround to prevent dropping tag and suiciding. Players need to have the right to leave a tag if they choose to do so.

3) Restarts start untagged.
Comment: Don’t understand why but no biggie. Before the restarts you had to start from scratch and retag anyways.



Additional changes:

The restart bonus will also be removed in all circumstances.

Comment: Why not remove the restart altogether?
Humanitarians protest if a country attempts to attack another country which is 24 times bigger or smaller than it.

Question:
Clan A has an FDP with Clan B
Clan C has an FDP with Clan D
Clan A declares war on Clan D, according to these changes neither B and C can honor their FDP with clan B declaring on C and D and C declaring on A and B and even that is dependent on the uNAPS that may or may not exist amongst all the parties. This seems to get very complicated, very quickly the larger the war is.
While some aspects of ingame DNH and uNAPs are appealing, forcing those without the hierarchy of the FDP/LDP seems problematic.

1. I would like to see the return of missiles being able to be sold.

2. Oiler tech. This would encourage different varieties of strats and change up the market.

3. Foreign Aid Frequency of 22 hrs per country, but no limit on how many you can send in a day. If you have a country with 30 turns, let them be able to send aid to 10 separate countries.

4. Eliminate end of game humanitarians, if someone hits your tag at the end of the round, you should be able to kill them.

5. Retaliation Bots. Have bots retal anyone who hits them 3 of more times in a 12 hr window.

Great ideas! Hey Im all for it!

Hah <3

Bonus?

I’m still getting this message:


********
Your generals will not attack such a large opponent!
Military Status: Awaiting your orders
********


Why?


Here are the orders:

SS so I can capture some land in this War Game.

If I have enough power, I win.
If I don’t, I lose.

Slagpit,

Is this thread being censored?

Where is Coalie’s message from yesterday describing and detailing how he and his entire clan are going to cheat just in order to kill us?

It was there, plain as day, in clear English, for you and everyone else to read. Now it looks like it’s gone.

It is their INTENTION to cheat.

In other words, they are INTENDING to cheat.

In more words, the are going to employ dirty tactics outside of this game, and bring them into this game in order to kill us.

In additional words, they are using cheater tools that are not available to anyone else in the game in order to cheat and dominate.

Are you letting this happen?

Let’s see…. They just told us yesterday that they are in the process of making scripts and bots to track our gameplay time and then do automated kill runs on us.

What’s the difference between that and running a Troll Farm of Multis?

I’m all for a fair fight but this is ridiculous.

If you are going cheat, then admit to it, then tell the entire community that you are gearing up to be an egregious group of cheaters using cheater tools (unavailable to honest players) in the coming set, then you should be BANISHED from the game.

Maybe they get those high scores because they’ve been cheating all this time.

This game has its fair share of rotten, cheating, apples who can cheat away with no consequences.

Could you please clarify whether or not I am allowed to employ all development means available to me, outside of the current suite of tools in this game in order to win?

Because if that’s the case…. Get ready.

Oh yeah Josey I’m also going to tell you how else we’re cheating. We’re gonna use “pacts”

We put in a special clause in there just for you guys, if you want a sneak peek, I’ll show you.

Here you go

https://imgur.com/a/VOPJssU

I don't see any confessions of cheating in this thread. You should send a private message to a moderator if you legitimately believe that a player is cheating.

Except that realistically, there is NO defence against a suicider. It doesn't matter how high a defence you have, full defensive allies, Max weapons tech, a suicider can and will still wreck your set regardless.
And this is something that has always been an issue.

I'm totally down for combat in a combat game, but I also believe that that is based around clan leaders skill at diplomacy, between clans, not some random asshole deciding that terrorising someone who HAS managed to use diplomacy to keep themselves safe is funny.
Not everyone has the time to dedicate to this game, and play because of the community they play with, rather than the game itself.

I know I'll never finish top of the tables for example, because I don't have the time to dedicate to doing that.
But, I still play for the factor of beating my own past scores, and seeing how well I can do, and, at the same time, I act as part of the team who goes after targets. Suiciding on me isn't going to bother me. But I know that some of my players, getting suicided on in a game that they're not really here for, pushes them out.

You mentioned war players leaving because they can't get wars.
Fight each other then.
But, they don't REALLY want to do that, what they actually want, is to beat on a target that they know in all likelihood can't/won't win, so they can gloat about how good they are.

That's certainly not always the case, but as a general rule, it's pretty accurate.