Action
What is an Action
An action is an activity a party can perform to achieve their objective. A typical example of an action would be a housing corporation constructing social housing, or a water board realizing open water.
How actions relate to the Tygron Engine
When a player 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 player plants new trees, this action would have an effect on the indicator Quality of Life. Actions are tied to specific stakeholders, referring to the capability each stakeholder has to influence the 3D World. The waterboard has the capability to create water, but not social housing or roads. Since a player can have a lot of different actions available to reach their objective, actions are organized into categories.
Predefined Actions
A lot of predefined actions are available in Tygron Engine. Not all those actions have to be available to the players in all games. Since the game is about urban planning, most of the available actions have an available construction associated with it function.
For more information about all the actions available in the Tygron Engine, see the list of option groups
Effects of Actions
Construction Options
Most actions, when planned by the player, will place a construction in the 3D World and will 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. The effect on the indicator is determined by that element's function (type).
For changing the effects of the constructions on the indicators, see functions.
Extra Options
Examples of actions that do not place or remove en element in the 3D world, and thus do not have an associated construction option, include money transfer, buy and sell land, demolish, and the inbox. These actions are grouped together as Extra options.
Categories
For each player, 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 actions in a category to 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 players. This means that two or more players 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.
Editing categories and actions
In the editor, you can add, remove and reorganize actions and categories in the game as desired. The panel required to make changes to the actions and catogories is the "Actions" panel from the "Stakeholder" menu in 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.
Adding and removing categories and actions
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.
It is also possible to share categories between multiple stakeholders. The category must first be created for a single stakeholder, and can then be added to other stakeholders as well. Actions added to such a category can be used by all stakeholders with that category.
Adding a category
- To add a new category to the current stakeholder, right-click in the middle pane, and select "Add Category".
- To add an already existing category to the stakeholder, right-click in the middle pane, and choose "Add Existing Category". Then pick a category from the categories list.
Removing a category
- To remove a category from the current stakeholder only, right-click on the category you want to remove, and select "Remove from stakeholder".
- To permanently delete a category completely, right-click on the the category you want to remove, and select "Delete Category". This also removes it from other stakeholders.
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, you need to to add a category first.
- To remove an action from a category, right-click the action you want to remove from the category you want to remove, and select "Delete Option"
Editing categories
In the middle of the panel, you will see the existing categories. When you select a category, the right of the panel 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".