The obvious choice in this environment is a Clique-y defensebot; send the clique signal and cooperate with them, but instead of being an attackbot otherwise be a defensebot.
Since you wouldn’t use this logic against other cliquebots it would be hard for them to punish you without giving up the ability to cooperate with themselves. You’ll outperform other cliquebots if the other cliquebots dominate by dominating sooner and riding off their punishments. In the mid game either cliquebots dominate with you slightly ahead and you win, or cliquebots die off but you’ve survived the early game and cooperate with them so you get the benefits of attackers in the pool without the costs.
If enough cliquebots defect like this, then I’m not sure what would happen, and it’ll depend a lot on what the initial distribution is I guess. If there are very few cliquebots this one is also vulnerable to other attackbots, but I think enough other possibilities (cliquey equitybot or cliquey foldbot) make me strongly suspect that someone will win by defecting from the clique.
The obvious choice in this environment is a Clique-y defensebot; send the clique signal and cooperate with them, but instead of being an attackbot otherwise be a defensebot.
Since you wouldn’t use this logic against other cliquebots it would be hard for them to punish you without giving up the ability to cooperate with themselves. You’ll outperform other cliquebots if the other cliquebots dominate by dominating sooner and riding off their punishments. In the mid game either cliquebots dominate with you slightly ahead and you win, or cliquebots die off but you’ve survived the early game and cooperate with them so you get the benefits of attackers in the pool without the costs.
If enough cliquebots defect like this, then I’m not sure what would happen, and it’ll depend a lot on what the initial distribution is I guess. If there are very few cliquebots this one is also vulnerable to other attackbots, but I think enough other possibilities (cliquey equitybot or cliquey foldbot) make me strongly suspect that someone will win by defecting from the clique.