Strategies that enforce linear payoff relationships under observation errors in Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma game.

The theory of repeated games analyzes the long-term relationship of interacting players and mathematically reveals the condition of how cooperation is achieved, which is not achieved in a one-shot game. In the repeated prisoner's dilemma (RPD) game with no errors, zero-determinant (ZD) strategies allow a player to unilaterally set a linear relationship between the player's own payoff and the opponent's payoff regardless of the strategy that the opponent implements. In contrast, unconditional strategies such as ALLD and ALLC also unilaterally set a linear payoff relationship. Errors often happen between players in the real world. However, little is known about the existence of such strategies in the RPD game with errors. Here, we analytically search for all strategies that enforce a linear payoff relationship under observation errors in the RPD game. As a result, we found that, even in the case with observation errors, the only strategy sets that enforce a linear payoff relationship are either ZD strategies or unconditional strategies and that no other strategies can enforce it, which were numerically confirmed.