Aggregate Fictitious Play for Learning in Anonymous Polymatrix Games (Extended Version)

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Kara, Semih, Başar, Tamer
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Kara, Semih
Başar, Tamer
author_facet Kara, Semih
Başar, Tamer
contents Fictitious play (FP) is a well-studied algorithm that enables agents to learn Nash equilibrium in games with certain reward structures. However, when agents have no prior knowledge of the reward functions, FP faces a major challenge: the joint action space grows exponentially with the number of agents, which slows down reward exploration. Anonymous games offer a structure that mitigates this issue. In these games, the rewards depend only on the actions taken; not on who is taking which action. Under such a structure, we introduce aggregate fictitious play (agg-FP), a variant of FP where each agent tracks the frequency of the number of other agents playing each action, rather than these agents' individual actions. We show that in anonymous polymatrix games, agg-FP converges to a Nash equilibrium under the same conditions as classical FP. In essence, by aggregating the agents' actions, we reduce the action space without losing the convergence guarantees. Using simulations, we provide empirical evidence on how this reduction accelerates convergence.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_19371
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Aggregate Fictitious Play for Learning in Anonymous Polymatrix Games (Extended Version)
Kara, Semih
Başar, Tamer
Computer Science and Game Theory
Machine Learning
Multiagent Systems
Systems and Control
Fictitious play (FP) is a well-studied algorithm that enables agents to learn Nash equilibrium in games with certain reward structures. However, when agents have no prior knowledge of the reward functions, FP faces a major challenge: the joint action space grows exponentially with the number of agents, which slows down reward exploration. Anonymous games offer a structure that mitigates this issue. In these games, the rewards depend only on the actions taken; not on who is taking which action. Under such a structure, we introduce aggregate fictitious play (agg-FP), a variant of FP where each agent tracks the frequency of the number of other agents playing each action, rather than these agents' individual actions. We show that in anonymous polymatrix games, agg-FP converges to a Nash equilibrium under the same conditions as classical FP. In essence, by aggregating the agents' actions, we reduce the action space without losing the convergence guarantees. Using simulations, we provide empirical evidence on how this reduction accelerates convergence.
title Aggregate Fictitious Play for Learning in Anonymous Polymatrix Games (Extended Version)
topic Computer Science and Game Theory
Machine Learning
Multiagent Systems
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19371