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Prisoner's Dilemma

The Prisoner's Dilemma problem is the classic problem for examining how computer's (people even!) participate in relationships in which cooperation is beneficial. (I don't have any original references handy yet - I will find them).

Essentially the game examines the benefits of cooperation within a 2 entity relationship using a simple payoff matrix.

1. The game may have any even number of participants.

2. The game is played in rounds (round-robin etc). Each round consists of 2 entities playing off against each other in a fixed number of games (say 10 games).

3. Each round an entity may either D(efect) or C(ooperate).
If both entities Cooperate they get 3 points each. If both entities Defect they get 1 point each. If one entity Defect's while the other Cooperates it get 5 points; the Cooperating entity gets zero points.

4. Of course the winning entity is the one with the most points. Overall more points can be accumulated by the entities Cooperating; but selfishness may pay off in some cases.