Using external programs to compute Nash equilibria#
Because the problem of finding Nash equilibria can be expressed in various mathematical formulations (see [McKMcL96]), it is helpful to make use of other software packages designed specifically for solving those problems.
There are currently two integrations offered for using external programs to solve for equilibria:
enummixed_solve()supports enumeration of equilibria in two-player games via lrslib. [1]enumpoly_solve()supports computation of totally-mixed equilibria on supports in strategic games via PHCpack. [2]
For both calls, using the external program requires passing the path to the executable (via the lrsnash_path and phcpack_path arguments, respectively).
The user must download and compile or install these programs on their own; these are not packaged with Gambit. The solver calls do take care of producing the required input files, and reading the output to convert into Gambit objects for further processing.
McKelvey, Richard D. and McLennan, Andrew M. (1996) Computation of equilibria in finite games. In Handbook of Computational Economics, Volume 1, pages 87-142.