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 I outside of my regular projects 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.

Here is an exploratory analysis of the dataset on nbviewer

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 attacker's king. A slash indicators that the king charges over the course of the war. 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_2: String variable. Major house attacking.
• attacker_3: String variable. Major house attacking.
• attacker_4: String variable. Major house attacking.
• defender_1: String variable. Major house defending.
• defender_2: String variable. Major house defending.
• defender_3: String variable. Major house defending.
• defender_4: String variable. Major house defending.
• attacker_outcome: Categorical variable. The outcome from the perspective of the attacker. Categories: win, loss, draw.
• 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?

Not really. I just love data - all data.

This data is mirrored and can be queried via API here