The existence and uniqueness of Nash equilibrium point in an \(m\)-player game ``Shoot later, shoot first!'' (Q2501065)

In this paper the authors consider the game of \(m\) players where each player has one ``bullet'' which she/he can shoot at any time during the time interval \([0,1].\) Each player is located initially at a distance from a ``target'' and the probability that the \(i\)th player hits the target at the moment \(t\) is given by an accuracy function \(f_{i}(t)\), where \(f_{i}(t)\) is a continuous, (strictly) increasing, \(0\leq f_{i}(t)\leq 1\) and \(f_{i}(0)=0.\) The winner of the game is the player who hits the target first. If two or more players hit the target, then the winner of the game is determined by a lottery (draw rule) among these players. The authors call this game ``Shoot later, shoot first''. A solution of the game ''Shoot later, shoot first'' for \(m=2\) is given by [\textit{A. Garnaev}, Search games and other applications of game theory. Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems. 485. Berlin: Springer (2000; Zbl 0954.91015)]. Under natural assumptions on the functions \(f_{i}(t)\), the existence and uniqueness of a Nash equilibrium point (E-point) is proved in a simplified way and the construction of the equilibrium point is described. The examples presented in this paper demonstrate the way to find the E-point. The authors hope that the methods developed in the paper will help to solve example games described in Garnaev (loc. cit.) for \(m>2.\)