The War Of The Five Kings, A Dataset

This repo contains a dataset of the battles in the War of the Five Kings from George R.R. Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire series.

This small side project came about because outside [of] Crisis.net and Ushahidi.com I have been looking for a small-n dataset to use as a data science teaching tool. While "non-fiction" datasets are, frankly, more interesting, they also come with the mess, complications, and grey-areas associated with the real world. On the other end of the spectrum, randomly generated datasets can be difficult to use as a teaching tool because their outputs (e.g. visualizations or analyses) are meaningless. So, instead of generating a dataset from random-values, the George R.R. Martin series provides ample source material to create a dataset that is both fictional and with (for anyone that has read the series) built-in context. Also, I had a few hours to kill in an airport.

Codebook

This readme file acts as the codebook for the dataset.

Level Of Observation:

• The battles of the War of the Five Kings

Variables:

• name: String variable. The name of the battle.
• year: Numeric variable. The year of the battle.
• battle_number: Numeric variable. A unique ID number for the battle.
• attacker_king: Categorical. The attacking king.For example, "Joffrey/Tommen Baratheon" is coded as such because one king follows the other in the Iron Throne.
• defender_king: Categorical variable. The defender's king.
• attacker_1: String variable. Major house attacking.
• attacker_outcome: Categorical variable. The outcome from the perspective war.
• battle_type: Categorical variable. A classification of the battle's primary type. Categories:
  • pitched_battle: Armies meet in a location and fight. This is also the baseline category.
  • ambush: A battle where stealth or subterfuge was the primary means of attack.
  • siege: A prolonged of a fortied position.
  • razing: An attack against an undefended position
• major_death: Binary variable. If there was a death of a major figure during the battle.
• major_capture: Binary variable. If there was the capture of the major figure during the battle.
• attacker_size: Numeric variable. The size of the attacker's force. No distinction is made between the types of soldiers such as cavalry and footmen.
• defender_size: Numeric variable. The size of the defenders's force. No distinction is made between the types of soldiers such as cavalry and footmen.
• attacker_commander: String variable. Major commanders of the attackers. Commander's names are included without honoric titles and commandders are seperated by commas.
• defender_commander: String variable. Major commanders of the defener. Commander's names are included without honoric titles and commandders are seperated by commas.
• summer: Binary variable. Was it summer?
• location: String variable. The location of the battle.
• region: Categorical variable. The region where the battle takes place. Categories: Beyond the Wall, The North, The Iron Islands, The Riverlands, The Vale of Arryn, The Westerlands, The Crownlands, The Reach, The Stormlands, Dorne
• note: String variable. Coding notes regarding individual observations.

Source:

• A Wiki of Fire and Ice's War Of The Five Kings page on the war and the pages of individual battles. Data collected August 17, 2014 at 4:30am-ish.

Are you a huge ASOIAF fan?

HELL YEAH ! I just love data too - all data.

Working on...

Outcome of Danny's Westeros Invasion

This data is mirrored and can be queried via API here