I had another thought occur to me with regards to improving a game mechanic, so this thread will be about some Palace-related ideas I had.
So first, I propose that the Palace, which represents the heart of your civilization and your government, should get a +8 loyalty boost. I think that the fact that it can be just as easy to influence the heart of your enemy's government with loyalty pressure as a normal city is just a bit silly.
Second, moving the capital. This should be a project that the original capital can take, scaling with the number of cities and/or the distance that the capital is moving, and also some sort of penalty for moving based on the size/number of districts the potential city has less of compared to the original capital, and based on the number of times your civilization has taken the project. Generally, it should be better and cheaper for your seat of government to move to a city that is of more equal importance than to some backwater size 1 desert town.
Once the project is completed, the "new" capital shall be designated as the civ's "Original Capital", unless and until the palace project is moved again.
A caveat to this to prevent abuse in the case of a protracted war/repeatedly moving to prevent domination victory issues: the project can ONLY be taken while you are at peace with major civilizations (city-states don't compete for domination victories, so I think it would be okay to take this while at war with the more minor players). If your civilization is working on the project while you are at war, it may finish the project as normal, because you were already in the process of moving the government, so it should be allowed for you to possibly finish that opportunity and to defend your government as it moves (and to prevent conquerors with good intelligence networks from abusing the "only at peace" mechanic). However, if you switch production while at war with major civilizations, you lose all of your progress (another thing to carefully balance this mechanic). Should the enemy civilization capture your original capital while in process of the government moving, then it is treated as a normal capital domination capture.
Your "new" capital is a more temporary seat of government, and you should be able to move it around more cheaply and with more ease, so I suggest that the project cost be reduced while you don't have your original capital (a "move new capital" project). Should you recapture your old capital, you can choose instantly move your seat of government back to it's original location. You also get a "phoenix rises from the ashes" or "triumph" achievement against your enemy for recapturing your capital, which locks loyalty in the original capital for 10 turns (to prevent it from easily switching back to the enemy due to population loss from war/loyalty issues, etc.) and also gives you a huge boost of era score in a historic moment (Think liberating Paris from the Germans in WWII and how big of a deal that was for the Allies/French). This also removes your "new" capital and leaves you with just the old one.
However, you can also instantly choose to recognize your "new" capital as your seat of government instead in this instance - you don't get that loyalty lock, but you still get the era score triumph. Your "new" capital instantly becomes your "Original" capital as you recognize its new place of prominence. That capital keeps the palace and the +8 loyalty now.
There might have been something else I thought of, but those were the main points I came up with.
So first, I propose that the Palace, which represents the heart of your civilization and your government, should get a +8 loyalty boost. I think that the fact that it can be just as easy to influence the heart of your enemy's government with loyalty pressure as a normal city is just a bit silly.
Second, moving the capital. This should be a project that the original capital can take, scaling with the number of cities and/or the distance that the capital is moving, and also some sort of penalty for moving based on the size/number of districts the potential city has less of compared to the original capital, and based on the number of times your civilization has taken the project. Generally, it should be better and cheaper for your seat of government to move to a city that is of more equal importance than to some backwater size 1 desert town.
Once the project is completed, the "new" capital shall be designated as the civ's "Original Capital", unless and until the palace project is moved again.
A caveat to this to prevent abuse in the case of a protracted war/repeatedly moving to prevent domination victory issues: the project can ONLY be taken while you are at peace with major civilizations (city-states don't compete for domination victories, so I think it would be okay to take this while at war with the more minor players). If your civilization is working on the project while you are at war, it may finish the project as normal, because you were already in the process of moving the government, so it should be allowed for you to possibly finish that opportunity and to defend your government as it moves (and to prevent conquerors with good intelligence networks from abusing the "only at peace" mechanic). However, if you switch production while at war with major civilizations, you lose all of your progress (another thing to carefully balance this mechanic). Should the enemy civilization capture your original capital while in process of the government moving, then it is treated as a normal capital domination capture.
Your "new" capital is a more temporary seat of government, and you should be able to move it around more cheaply and with more ease, so I suggest that the project cost be reduced while you don't have your original capital (a "move new capital" project). Should you recapture your old capital, you can choose instantly move your seat of government back to it's original location. You also get a "phoenix rises from the ashes" or "triumph" achievement against your enemy for recapturing your capital, which locks loyalty in the original capital for 10 turns (to prevent it from easily switching back to the enemy due to population loss from war/loyalty issues, etc.) and also gives you a huge boost of era score in a historic moment (Think liberating Paris from the Germans in WWII and how big of a deal that was for the Allies/French). This also removes your "new" capital and leaves you with just the old one.
However, you can also instantly choose to recognize your "new" capital as your seat of government instead in this instance - you don't get that loyalty lock, but you still get the era score triumph. Your "new" capital instantly becomes your "Original" capital as you recognize its new place of prominence. That capital keeps the palace and the +8 loyalty now.
There might have been something else I thought of, but those were the main points I came up with.
