Date of Award

6-2017

Document Type

Open Access

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Department

Computer Science

Second Department

History

First Advisor

Chris Fernandes

Second Advisor

Steven Sargent

Language

English

Keywords

data mining, simulation, Tamerlane Empire

Abstract

In 1402, at the north of city Ankara, Turkey, a battle between Ottoman Empire and Tamerlane Empire decided the fate of Europe and Asia. Although historians largely agree on the general battle procedure, the details are still open to dispute. Several factors may have contributed to the Ottoman defeat, such as the overwhelming size of Tamerlanes army, poisoned water, the tactical formations of the military units, and betrayal by the Tartar cavalry in the Ottoman left wing. The approach is divided into two stages: the simulation stage, which provides data to analyze the complex interactions of autonomous agents, and the analysis stage, which uses data mining to examine the battle outcomes. The simulation is built on a finite state machine to evaluate the current situation of each agent and then choose the most appropriate action. To achieve historical accuracy, the simulation takes into account the topography of the battlefield, line-of-sight issues, period-specific combat tactics, and the armor and weapons used by the various military units at that time. The analysis stage uses WEKAs AttributeSelection Classifier to evaluate the association strength between the battle outcome and the various factors that historians consider crucial to the outcome.

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