All-pay 2 $$\times $$ × 2 Hex: a multibattle contest with complementarities

Abstract

We examine a modified 2 $$\times $$ 2 game of Hex in which the winner of each cell is determined by a Tullock contest. The player establishing a winning path of cells in the game wins a fixed prize. Examining the polar cases of all cells being contested simultaneously versus all four cells being contested sequentially, we show that there is an increase in the total expected payoff for the players in the sequential case. We identify conditions under which players have identical and non-identical expected payoffs when the contest order is pre-specified. We also examine dissipation for random order contests. We thus provide a canonical model of a multibattle contest in which complementarities between battlefields are heterogeneous across both battlefields and players.