# Glossary

Key terms and definitions used throughout the documentation.

## Terms

### Area Effect
Radius-based modifier from a building or specialist (income, happiness, safety). Shown by green/red arrows during building placement.

### Need Flicker
A need repeatedly turning on/off because storage hits zero intermittently. Often caused by transport delays or production imbalance.

### Throughput
Effective goods per time, impacted by cycle time and logistics. Higher throughput means more goods delivered per minute.

### Upkeep
Ongoing gold loss and workforce reservation for a building. Most buildings have both gold and worker maintenance costs.

### Warehouse Cloud
Shared island storage accessible via connected warehouses/trading post. All buildings in range share access to stored goods.

### Cycle Time
The time in seconds for a building to complete one production cycle. Used to calculate building ratios in production chains.

### Fertility
Terrain property that determines what crops can be grown. Farms require specific fertility types to operate.

### Placement Constraints
Special requirements for where buildings can be placed (coast, marsh, forest, fields, etc.).