Finite Games with Incomplete Information

Abstract

In a game of imperfect information players may be uninformed about the moves made by other players. Every one-shot, simultaneous move game is a game of imperfect information. In a game of incomplete information players may be uninformed about certain characteristics of the game or of the players. For instance, a player may have incomplete information about actions available to some other player, or about payoffs of other players. Incomplete information is modelled by assuming that every player can be of a number of different types. A type of a player summarizes all relevant information (in particular, actions and payoffs) about that player. Furthermore, it is assumed that each player knows his own type and, given his own type, has a probability distribution over the types of the other players. Often, these probability distributions are assumed to be consistent in the sense that they are the marginal probability distributions derived from a basic commonly known distribution over all combinations of player types.