Negotiation Components¶

NegMAS provides modular components that can be combined to build custom negotiators. These components implement specific aspects of negotiation behavior such as acceptance strategies, offering strategies, and opponent modeling.

Overview¶

Components are the building blocks of modular negotiators. Instead of implementing a complete negotiator from scratch, you can compose negotiators from reusable components:

Acceptance Policies: Decide whether to accept, reject, or end negotiation
Offering Policies: Decide what offer to make
Opponent Models: Model the opponent’s preferences
Concession Strategies: Control how quickly to concede

Acceptance Policies¶

Acceptance policies determine how a negotiator responds to incoming offers.

Basic Acceptance Policies¶

Class	Description
`AcceptImmediately`	Accepts any offer immediately
`RejectAlways`	Rejects all offers
`EndImmediately`	Ends negotiation immediately
`AcceptAnyRational`	Accepts any outcome not worse than disagreement
`AcceptBetterRational`	Accepts outcomes better than all previously accepted
`AcceptNotWorseRational`	Accepts outcomes not worse than best accepted so far

Utility-Based Acceptance¶

Class	Description
`AcceptAbove`	Accepts outcomes above a utility threshold
`AcceptBest`	Accepts only the best possible outcome
`AcceptTop`	Accepts outcomes in the top fraction or top k
`ACConst`	Accepts outcomes with utility above a constant threshold
`RandomAcceptancePolicy`	Accepts with configurable probability

Time-Based Acceptance¶

Class	Description
`ACTime`	Accepts after a relative time threshold (tau)
`AcceptAfter`	Alias for ACTime
`AcceptAround`	Accepts around a specific relative time
`AcceptBetween`	Accepts within a time range

Offer-Based Acceptance¶

Class	Description
`ACNext`	Accepts if offer is better than what we would propose next
`ACLast`	Accepts based on our last offer utility
`ACLastKReceived`	Accepts based on last k received offers
`ACLastFractionReceived`	Accepts based on offers in a time fraction
`TFTAcceptancePolicy`	Tit-for-tat: concedes as much as partner

Composite Acceptance¶

Class	Description
`AllAcceptanceStrategies`	Accepts only if all child strategies accept
`AnyAcceptancePolicy`	Accepts if any child strategy accepts
`ConcensusAcceptancePolicy`	Base class for consensus-based acceptance
`NegotiatorAcceptancePolicy`	Uses another negotiator’s acceptance logic
`LimitedOutcomesAcceptancePolicy`	Accepts from a predefined outcome list

Offering Policies¶

Offering policies determine what offers a negotiator makes.

Basic Offering Policies¶

Class	Description
`OfferBest`	Always offers the best outcome
`OfferTop`	Offers from top fraction or top k outcomes
`NoneOfferingPolicy`	Always offers None (no agreement)
`RandomOfferingPolicy`	Offers random outcomes
`LimitedOutcomesOfferingPolicy`	Offers from a predefined list

Time-Based Offering¶

Class	Description
`TimeBasedOfferingPolicy`	Offers based on aspiration curve over time
`HybridOfferingPolicy`	Combines time-based and behavior-based strategies

Rational Concession Offering¶

Class	Description
`MiCROOfferingPolicy`	Monotonic concession - one outcome at a time
`FastMiCROOfferingPolicy`	Faster MiCRO that may skip outcomes
`CABOfferingPolicy`	Conceding Accepting Better strategy
`WAROfferingPolicy`	Wasting Accepting Rational strategy
`TFTOfferingPolicy`	Tit-for-tat offering based on partner concession

Composite Offering¶

Class	Description
`ConcensusOfferingPolicy`	Base for consensus-based offering
`UnanimousConcensusOfferingPolicy`	Offers only if all strategies agree
`RandomConcensusOfferingPolicy`	Randomly selects from child strategies
`MyBestConcensusOfferingPolicy`	Offers best outcome from child strategies
`MyWorstConcensusOfferingPolicy`	Offers worst outcome from child strategies
`NegotiatorOfferingPolicy`	Uses another negotiator’s offering logic

Genius BOA Components¶

NegMAS provides Python implementations of Genius BOA (Bidding, Opponent modeling, Acceptance) framework components. These are fully implemented in Python and do NOT require the Java Genius bridge.

Note

These components can be used standalone or combined with the Python-native Genius negotiators (GBoulware, GHardHeaded, etc.) documented in Available Negotiators.

Genius Acceptance Policies¶

Basic Acceptance Policies

Class	Description
`GACNext`	Accept if offer ≥ next planned offer (AC_Next)
`GACConst`	Accept if utility > constant threshold
`GACTime`	Time-based acceptance (after time threshold)
`GACPrevious`	Accept if better than opponent’s previous offer
`GACGap`	Gap-based acceptance (utility gap analysis)
`GACTrue`	Always accept (baseline)
`GACFalse`	Always reject (baseline)

Combined Acceptance Policies

Class	Description
`GACCombi`	Combined acceptance (AC_Next OR AC_Const)
`GACCombiMax`	Combined with max aggregation
`GACCombiAvg`	Combined with average aggregation
`GACCombiBestAvg`	Combined with best average
`GACCombiV2`, `GACCombiV3`, `GACCombiV4`	Combined acceptance variants
`GACCombiMaxInWindow`	Combined max in sliding window
`GACCombiProb`	Probabilistic combined acceptance

Discounted Acceptance Policies

For domains with time discounts:

Class	Description
`GACConstDiscounted`	Discounted constant threshold
`GACCombiBestAvgDiscounted`	Discounted best average
`GACCombiMaxInWindowDiscounted`	Discounted max in window
`GACCombiProbDiscounted`	Discounted probabilistic

ANAC Agent-Specific Acceptance

Acceptance strategies derived from ANAC competition agents:

Class	Description
`GACHardHeaded`	HardHeaded (ANAC 2011 winner) acceptance
`GACCUHKAgent`	CUHKAgent (ANAC 2012 winner) acceptance
`GACAgentK`, `GACAgentK2`	AgentK series acceptance
`GACAgentLG`	AgentLG (ANAC 2012) acceptance
`GACNozomi`	Nozomi (ANAC 2010) acceptance
`GACAgentSmith`	AgentSmith (ANAC 2010) acceptance
`GACTheFawkes`	TheFawkes (ANAC 2013) acceptance
`GACGahboninho`	Gahboninho (ANAC 2011) acceptance
`GACABMP`	ABMP-style acceptance
`GACUncertain`	Uncertainty-aware acceptance
`GACMAC`	MAC acceptance strategy

Genius Offering Policies¶

Class	Description
`GTimeDependentOffering`	Time-dependent bidding with configurable e parameter
`GBoulwareOffering`	Boulware (e=0.2): concedes slowly
`GConcederOffering`	Conceder (e=2.0): concedes quickly
`GLinearOffering`	Linear (e=1.0): constant concession
`GHardlinerOffering`	Hardliner (e=0): never concedes
`GRandomOffering`	Random bid selection
`GChoosingAllBids`	Chooses from all possible bids

Genius Opponent Models¶

Basic Models

Class	Description
`GDefaultModel`	Default opponent model (no modeling)
`GUniformModel`	Assumes uniform preferences
`GOppositeModel`	Assumes opposite preferences to self
`GWorstModel`	Assumes worst-case opponent
`GPerfectModel`	Perfect knowledge (for testing)

Frequency-Based Models

Class	Description
`GHardHeadedFrequencyModel`	HardHeaded frequency model (tracks unchanged issues)
`GSmithFrequencyModel`	AgentSmith frequency model
`GAgentXFrequencyModel`	AgentX exponential smoothing model
`GNashFrequencyModel`	Nash-based frequency model
`GCUHKFrequencyModel`	CUHKAgent frequency model
`GAgentLGModel`	AgentLG opponent model

Bayesian Models

Class	Description
`GBayesianModel`	Bayesian opponent model
`GScalableBayesianModel`	Scalable Bayesian model for large spaces
`GFSEGABayesianModel`	FSEGA Bayesian model
`GIAMhagglerBayesianModel`	IAMhaggler Bayesian model

Agent-Specific Models

Class	Description
`GTheFawkesModel`	TheFawkes opponent model
`GInoxAgentModel`	InoxAgent opponent model

Usage Examples¶

Building a Custom Negotiator¶

from negmas.sao import SAOMechanism
from negmas.sao.negotiators import SAONegotiator
from negmas.sao.components import (
    TimeBasedOfferingPolicy,
    ACNext,
)
from negmas.negotiators.helpers import PolyAspiration

# Create a negotiator with custom components
class MyNegotiator(SAONegotiator):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        # Time-based offering with boulware curve
        self.offering = TimeBasedOfferingPolicy(curve=PolyAspiration(1.0, "boulware"))
        # Accept if offer is better than what we'd propose
        self.acceptance = ACNext(offering_strategy=self.offering)

Using Genius BOA Components¶

Genius BOA components can be used to build custom negotiators without Java.

from negmas.gb.negotiators.modular.boa import BOANegotiator
from negmas.gb.components.genius import (
    GBoulwareOffering,
    GACCombi,
    GHardHeadedFrequencyModel,
)

# Create a custom HardHeaded-style negotiator
class MyHardHeadedAgent(BOANegotiator):
    def __init__(self, **kwargs):
        offering = GBoulwareOffering()
        acceptance = GACCombi(offering_policy=offering)
        model = GHardHeadedFrequencyModel()
        super().__init__(
            offering=offering, acceptance=acceptance, model=model, **kwargs
        )

Combining Multiple Acceptance Strategies¶

from negmas.sao.components import (
    AllAcceptanceStrategies,
    ACTime,
    AcceptAbove,
)

# Accept only if both conditions are met:
# 1. After 80% of negotiation time
# 2. Utility is above 0.6
combined = AllAcceptanceStrategies(
    strategies=[
        ACTime(tau=0.8),
        AcceptAbove(limit=0.6),
    ]
)

Negotiation Components¶

Overview¶

Acceptance Policies¶

Basic Acceptance Policies¶

Utility-Based Acceptance¶

Time-Based Acceptance¶

Offer-Based Acceptance¶

Composite Acceptance¶

Offering Policies¶

Basic Offering Policies¶

Time-Based Offering¶

Rational Concession Offering¶

Composite Offering¶

Genius BOA Components¶

Genius Acceptance Policies¶

Genius Offering Policies¶

Genius Opponent Models¶

Usage Examples¶

Building a Custom Negotiator¶

Using Genius BOA Components¶

Combining Multiple Acceptance Strategies¶

See Also¶