Is moving your capitol a negative?

[Bleys]

In a Prince level, standard 3-continent map, 7-civ game I am currently playing (and trying a "no cottage" economy for the first time), I started on a huge continent with 4 of the other 6 civs on it, heh. I had a nice little peninsula to develop though, and managed to get early cities in good spots to carve out some decent land for myself.

Anyway, as I looked at the map, I decided my capitol would be better served on the larger chunk of land to the west (where three of the civs were, only one was to the east, and I cut him off at 3-4 cities, so he will be run over soon, pumping out cats and knights now). As soon as I moved it, I noticed the cultural impact had nearly already gotten one city from each of my neighbors close to flipping! I actually have another city I could move to again eventually (I am planning to pop a GA in it though). Another reason I moved my capitol is because my original one had become my main GP farm, best one I had managed to build so far.

I am not up to speed on taking/posting screenshots, so I apologize for the lack of a pic. But my question is more theoretical than specific to this game. A situation like that seems like an example of where moving the capitol is OK. What are the negatives of moving your capitol, other than the obvious wasted production time on the city who builds it? I have seen a lot of threads and thought "wow, if only that was/wasn't his capitol . . .".

 

[Gooblah]

I usually move my capital when I start on a peninsula, out from the rest of the good land; By centralizing it, relative to my cities, my maintenance/distance costs go way down-sometimes from -25 GPT to +6 GPT!

 

[Zanttu]

Yeah, moving your capital is acceptable when you start on penisula and moving your capital reduces your mainteance costs a lot. Another reason for moving capital is that if your current capital is a high-food GP Farm. In that case moving your capital to better commerce/production city is a good move to get better benefit from the powerful Bureaucracy civic.

 

[Mat777]

I never did but I think I will try this.

 

[Bleys]

I also cranked out Forbidden Palace in my old cap, thereby reducing the maint on the rest of my original set of cities, built to cut off my eastern border. That combo really jacked my numbers in a big way.

 

[Gliese 581]

You never really want to do it, but in the case you described and also in the case described by others here it's probably the best thing to do. Actually most of the time if you're going for conquest you should move your capital. On a standard continents map it's common that each civ starts not to far from the ocean and thus the central position will often be a ways off.

 

[futurehermit]

Yeah, moving your capital is acceptable when you start on penisula and moving your capital reduces your mainteance costs a lot. Another reason for moving capital is that if your current capital is a high-food GP Farm. In that case moving your capital to better commerce/production city is a good move to get better benefit from the powerful Bureaucracy civic.

agree 100%