I've been interested in learning how to program a system that can sense values and start tasks accordingly. A simply application would be a simulation game, where a character or a number of characters have a list of NEEDS that keep changing and will then automatically start TASKS to fill those needs and do so by going to different PLACES.

I'm stumped because I don't imagine this to be so difficult, creating lists, tickers/timers to change the values on these lists, or maybe even sensors/signals that tell the system a new task needs to be addressed, the system will then keep track of all the tasks in a queue and start and finish doing them automatically.

Other real world applications would be "if dark outside, turn on light", but while learning I think it's best to focus on a small set of needs and instructions on how to deal with them, like in a simulation game, or idle observation game. But I don't even know where to look for this kind of stuff.
Bonus question: Should I try learning it in a beginner friendly language like Python or C# that'll afford me translatable skills, or should I learn these things in the game-engine to begin with, since that's where it'll be applied?