Action

After reading this page

• You've learned what actions are
• You've learned what categories are
• You've learned how actions can influence indicators
• You've learned how to add and remove actions to a stakeholder

What is an Action

An action is an activity a Stakeholder can perform to achieve his objective. A typical example of an action would be a Housing Corporation aiming to realize social housing, or a Waterboard aiming to realize open water. Actions are tied to specific Stakeholders, referring to the capability each stakeholder has to influence the 3D World. For example the waterboard has the capability to realize Open water, but not social housing or roads.

How actions relate to the Tygron Engine

When a user plans an action it will influence the 3D World and have a certain effect on Indicators. The effect of the planned action simulates the effect the action would have in the real world. When a plants new trees, this action would have an effect on the indicator Quality of Life. Since a player can have different actions available to reach their targets, actions are organized into categories.

Available Actions

Predefined actions are available in Tygron Engine. Not all those actions have to be available to the players in all games. Available actions that the user can add to a category are divided into option groups. Each function also has an associated action.

Effects of Actions

Most actions have an effect on at least one or more indicators. Each action with a cost will negatively affect the acting player's budget. Actions such as parks and green roofs will positively affect the green indicator. Actions with an associated function will place or remove an element in the 3D world. In these cases, the effect on the indicator is determined by that element's function.

Examples of actions that do not place or remove en element in the 3D world, and thus do not have an associated function, include money transfer, buy and sell land, demolish, and the inbox. These actions are grouped together as Extra options.

Categories

For each stakeholder, their actions are organized into categories. Similar actions, such as creation of infrastructure (roads, traintracks, etc) or housing (villas, apartments, etc), can be grouped together into the same category. By roughly matching the indicators relevant to the stakeholder, it is possible for players to weigh choices of actions against each other easily.

Categories can also be shared between stakeholders. This means that two or more stakeholders can have access to the same category, and to the same actions within that category. An example of a category that could be shared among stakeholders would be a category with financial actions, such as the ability to transfer money. Having a category shared with another stakeholder has no effect on the usability of a category or the actions therein.

Adding and removing actions

In the editor, you can add, remove and reorganize actions and categories in the game as desired. To do this, you can open the "Actions" panel from the "Stakeholder" menu in the editor.

Editor → Editor Menu bar → Stakeholders → Actions

File:Editor - categories.jpg

The action screen of the editor.

To add an action to a stakeholder, the stakeholder first needs to have at least one category to place the action in. It is not possible to add an action to a stakeholder without organizing it into a category. A category without actions will appear to a player as an empty category, but does not directly serve any purpose.

Editing categories

In the middle of the panel, you will see the existing categories. When you select a category, the right of the pannel will automatically be filled with the information pertaining to that category. A number of properties pertaining to a category can be edited.

Category Name

This Category name field is the name of the category. The Category name is displayed when a player hovers the mouse over a category. You can change the name of the category by editing the textfield.

Category Icon

The Category icon is a visual representation of a Category. The category icon is used to group several actions into. You can change the icon by clicking the Category icon and choosing an image from the list of images that appears.

Category Order

The category order defines the order in which the categories are being presented to the user. You can change the order by selecting a category and pressing Move up and Move Down.

Adding and removing categories

To add a category Right-Click the middle pane, and choose Add Category.

To remove a category, select the category you want to remove Right-Click and select Delete from stakeholder

Adding and removing actions

To add an action to a category, drag an action from the left pane (for example, "Construction options -> Agriculture -> Corn Fields") to an available Category. When no category is available yet you need to to add a category first.

To remove an action from a category, select the action you want to remove from the category you want to remove, Right-Click and select "Delete Option"