Introduction to the Hawk-Dove Game
The Hawk-Dove game is a simple aggression versus non-aggression game developed early on in the lifetime of evolutionary game theory (Maynard Smith 1982).
The game models a population of animals of the same species interacting with each other for a certain "resource". This resource can be anything from food, shelter,
water, or a mix of any of these. The two basic strategies are Hawk, meaning aggressive behavior, and Dove, meaning non-aggressive behavior. When two animals
come into contact over a certain limited resource, a confrontation occurs. Depending on the strategies being employed (hawk or dove), a corresponding outcome and
payoff will be rewarded or deducted from each player. As an animal wins more resources, its "fitness" increases. Fitness may be reproduction, strength, survival rate,
or any attribute that will benefit the animal. The goal of each animal is to maximize it's fitness and when an entire population plays this game, interesting results appear.
It must be understood that many assumptions are being made when creating this game. It is assumed that resource distribution is the same for each identical
encounter. In the real world, many other factors affect the fitness of the population, but this game is a simplified representation of the choices a population must make
to maintain stability and to survive. Yet it gives a basic model of the stability achieved when these two strategies come into contact within a species. In later sections, I
be discussing the variations on strategies that can be used in this game, how the payoffs are distributed, long-term equilibriums and dominance, and a discussion on
the simulation.
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