Query game API

Revision as of 15:04, 13 September 2011

WarLight can provide an xml feed of data about a specific game. This allows for the more technical users to write a program that can analyze information about games. Currently, the feed is only available for finished ladder and tournament games.

There's nothing the feed can see that isn't already available through the game's normal interface. This is just a way to write custom analyzers which allows for a broader analysis across games.

Usage

To access the data, use a URL like this: http://warlight.net/Feeds/GameFeed.aspx?GameID=1212978

This will present you with a large XML blob describing everything about the game.

XML Definition

• A standing is the state of the board at any given point in time. This contains one entry per territory that contains the number of armies on that territory, who controls it, and the fog level.
• A turn is just a collection of orders. This includes all the orders each player submitted, mixed together in the sequence they played out.
• An order is obviously one order that a player submitted. But it can also include other things, such notifications when a player gets eliminated, or when cards are received, etc. Essentially, this represents what you see in the Orders panel on the right side of a game when viewing history.

In the xml blob, you'll find:

• The players in the game (their names, color, their state, etc.)
• All of the details of the map (it's name, all of its territories and what they connect to, all of its bonuses and what territories are in each bonus)
• The distribution standing: This is what the map looked like when it was time to pick the territories you started with. This is only present for manual distribution games.
• The picks: This tells you which territories each player picked, and in what order. Like the distribution standing, this is only present for manual distribution games.
• Standing 0: This tells you what the map looked like at the beginning of the game.
• Turn 0: This is all of the orders that played out on the first turn of the game.
• Standing x/turn x: Standings and turns then alternate for each turn of the game, all the way until the final standing.

Getting a list of Game IDs

In order to use the game feed, you'll need to know the game ID. This can be obtained through the graphical WarLight client by opening up the Settings panel and examining the "Link to Game" field. At the end of this field, you'll see GameID= followed by a number.

To find game IDs programmatically, you can use the Game ID feed API.

See Also

• Game ID feed API