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Combat API and its use in a Player Run Tourney

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Gragnog View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Gragnog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Apr 2016 at 16:49
You only need one player in an alliance to be occypying the square with api key for the alliance to get the occupy time. All other players can just attack and reinforce said player. Trying to punish players and alliances is just going to result in people hitting tournament squares to mess with the tournament. I for one will not be giving my api but will be reinforcing the square my alliance goes for. If that gets my alliance penalized you can be assured I will start to hit other squares just for fun then.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Rill Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Apr 2016 at 17:40
When this was discussed in gc, kodabear said he didn't see a problem with people not officially participating in the tournament trying to occupy the squares.  They won't get the prizes if they win, of course.

In terms of people who haven't given APIs trying to act as "spoilers" for the tournament, I don't see how that could be a thing, given that in the past everyone could try to occupy tournament square, and in this tournament, the same thing, everyone can try to occupy tournament squares.

In the past there have been folks who have tried to act as "spoilers" by camping on squares for reasons that did not appear to have tactical or strategic value.  There have also been people who seemed to think their actions had tactical or strategic value when they probably didn't.

Who are we to judge?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mr Damage Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Apr 2016 at 20:24
Thanks for the replies. Not trying to spoil anyone's fun just looking to have some of our own. I am happy not to be a chance of winning anything but would like to hit the squares regardless. There is no chance that Grey can win anything to start with.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote kodabear Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Apr 2016 at 20:40
Originally posted by Digioso Digioso wrote:

Originally posted by GM Stormcrow GM Stormcrow wrote:

Originally posted by Mr Damage Mr Damage wrote:

Question, if I dont give my API key I can still hit the tournament squares and the only consequence is that I won't be recorded in the stats for the tournament?
I have no idea. Mr D: that'd be up to the tournament organiser.  

They may be fine with it, or they (and the other participants) may take a dim view to people turning up and fighting without providing the API key.

SC


Your attack will be recorded and taken into account. The script will produce a warning message that a player took part in the tournament that hasn't shared his key.
So as long as your attack is recorded by another player it will be taken into account. If there is no record from another player of your attack it won't be considered simply because the script doesn't know about it.

Koda has to decide whether he politely asks you to give him your key or whether he'll issue a warning to you and your alliance. 2nd warning = your alliance is out of the tournament.
@Koda: Please correct me if I'm wrong about these plans.


I will ask players nicely for there API key. They wont have to give it to me but they wont get any prizes though.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Lagavulin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Apr 2016 at 20:55
sounds more than fair to me
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote kodabear Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Apr 2016 at 22:11
Originally posted by Gragnog Gragnog wrote:

You only need one player in an alliance to be occypying the square with api key for the alliance to get the occupy time. All other players can just attack and reinforce said player. Trying to punish players and alliances is just going to result in people hitting tournament squares to mess with the tournament. I for one will not be giving my api but will be reinforcing the square my alliance goes for. If that gets my alliance penalized you can be assured I will start to hit other squares just for fun then.

Just to be clear the only way for a whole alliance to be disqualified is by cheating (having more then one alliance hold a Tournament Squares). Now if no one from an alliance end up giving me a Tournament  API key and wins a sq they will still  prizes for the sq but if they won 1st place in the whole Tournament they wont get any medals (because i will be giving medals based on API key given to me). 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Digioso Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Apr 2016 at 09:34
Originally posted by Gragnog Gragnog wrote:

You only need one player in an alliance to be occypying the square with api key for the alliance to get the occupy time. All other players can just attack and reinforce said player. Trying to punish players and alliances is just going to result in people hitting tournament squares to mess with the tournament. I for one will not be giving my api but will be reinforcing the square my alliance goes for. If that gets my alliance penalized you can be assured I will start to hit other squares just for fun then.


As long as the script can get the information it doesn't matter how many players are involved that shared the combat key.
If none of the players who participated in the combat shared their API keys the combat cannot be tracked.
If only one player per alliance shares their key this would mean that this player has to participate in ALL combats and he also has to be the first player to occupy any square.
Because if another player that didn't share the key is the first player on a square it cannot be tracked.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Cilcain Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Apr 2016 at 12:09
Originally posted by GM Stormcrow GM Stormcrow wrote:

Sorry if I'm being obtuse:  I genuinely want to understand the objection to the API and the XML, as it currently stands.

SC

SC,

 

Sorry for the delayed response to your post – but I’ve been attempting to be on holiday for the last few days J

All you say regarding in-game battle reports is, of course, true.  A participant in a battle gets a report (either complete or partial), and is able to share this with whomever they like by forwarding the report.

This is fine, and it translates into the ‘fantasy Illyriad universe’ quite well as “word of the battle spread far and wide” type stories.

The use of the current API in my mind changes this somewhat.

Firstly, it enables intelligence gathering to be done automatically, and at volume – this is easily then extended into automation that populates a large database of intelligence outside of the perimeters of Illyriad.  The action of sharing information then becomes less of a ‘role play’ thing – which essentially the game is – to a coding thing.  The owner of data also loses the ability to cherry pick which data to forward on to others, as the API gives access to all data.

Secondly, the use of the current Combat API for a player run tourney means that players must share this data with players outside of their alliance with whom they have probably had no previous dealings.  Your example of forwarding battle reports is generally done within the confines of an alliance – or more specifically, shared with specific leadership accounts within an alliance.  On the fewer occasions when reports are shared outside of an alliance, they tend to be on a battle by battle basis (see the first point above).

Thirdly, the current Combat API provides more information (or rather, the same information in more scenarios) than in-game battle reports do.  Currently, if I reinforce a square occupied by my Allies, Confeds or NAPs, I just get a report stating that my army has arrived, and the name of the player with the earliest occupying army.  However, using the API, I get an XML that details all of the armies on the square (including troop types and quantities) – i.e. you can scout without Scouts, even when the occupying armies have huge contingents of defending scouts themselves.  The same applies for reinforcing a city.

 

I am not saying that the current Combat API should be retired – I think there are a great many good uses for it.  What I am saying, is that for the specific use case of a player run tourney, the current Combat API is not suitable, and that we need an API specific to this use case.  This tourney API should not only be tourney square specific, but should also filter out some data elements so that it doesn’t become a tool for intelligence gathering via the coder’s back door.  It wouldn’t require a new XML schema – just an API policy or data masking rule on the existing schema.

 

C


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Tacardi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Apr 2016 at 18:41
I would like to know "IF or WHEN" the coding will be changed? and if so will there be like another button to generate the tourney API code?

I'm a co-lead in TCOL and we are starting to get our members coordinated and providing the needed API code

Thanks
Tacardi 


Edited by Tacardi - 14 Apr 2016 at 18:42
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote GM Stormcrow Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 Apr 2016 at 19:40

Hi Cilcain,

Thanks for getting back to me.  

Originally posted by Cilcain Cilcain wrote:

Firstly, it enables intelligence gathering to be done automatically, and at volume – this is easily then extended into automation that populates a large database of intelligence outside of the perimeters of Illyriad.  The action of sharing information then becomes less of a ‘role play’ thing – which essentially the game is – to a coding thing.  The owner of data also loses the ability to cherry pick which data to forward on to others, as the API gives access to all data.

Many alliances have used the Full API key and automated parsers, for many years - precisely for the purpose of collating alliance-wide (and even confed-wide) intelligence purposes.  It saves all the members the hassle of copying and pasting every combat email into a text parser, which would achieve the same effect - but with more hassle.
Originally posted by Cilcain Cilcain wrote:

All you say regarding in-game battle reports is, of course, true.  A participant in a battle gets a report (either complete or partial), and is able to share this with whomever they like by forwarding the report.

This is fine, and it translates into the ‘fantasy Illyriad universe’ quite well as “word of the battle spread far and wide” type stories.

So... you're absolutely *fine* with the 'secret' data being shared with - or aggregated by - anyone in the game, entirely out of your control... but only so long as it's done manually via igms or via copy'n'pasting each individual xml file attached to each email into an xml aggregation system.

I guess this is where I believe your argument for a reduced API dataset loses traction; especially now as you're specifically making it an imposition on all the other players in this tournament as well - ie there's no point in your alliance using a restricted dataset API key unless all the tournament participants do... so we, the developers, must force all the tournament participants to abandon use of the Full API key for combats on tournament squares in order to satisfy your requirements to participate.

Your argument is, fundamentally, "it's not the data we object to, it's that the system is too automated - and we'd be fine if it was made more manual"... and I'm afraid to say that's not an argument that really holds much water.

Regards,

SC

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