Terra Mechanics or Swapping Continents

[AnaNg]

So I've heard some of you talk about, instead of making your new location on the pristine continent your colony, actually moving your capital to there and making your old civ the colony.

How, exactly, would that work though? I mean yeah, you build your palace in a new city and then free the old ones, ok. That's obvious. And the benefits are pretty obvious too (if you've beat civs by a good margin to Astr or are Portuguese): Plenty of room to expand, choice of locations, etc.

But don't you have to be bigger/stronger than your vassal? And, if you're safely rexing away on the far shores, you're still going to appear weak. If you get attacked, your vassal does as well and may likely lose some land as a result and... no longer be your vassal.

So how do you accomplish this location swap and keep your vassal/old location colony safe while you're sprawling about on the king-sized bed of the new world? And how early do you cut loose? 5 cities? More? Less?

 

[Sephlock]

Its impossible, people were just BSing. Until I see a turn by turn analysis of at least ten different games on ten different settings (I don't mean 10 total games, I mean 10 games on one setting, ten games on another, etc etc ), with screenshots of every single turn, I won't believe that its viable except under the most ideal of circumstances.

 

[alpaca]

Never tried it but the fact that your colony is stronger than you doesn't necessarily mean it'll break away from you if you're on good terms. Would be worth a try I guess.

I wouldn't cut off too early though, you're likely to experience quite a bit of a money drop after this I think. Maybe have some five to ten well-spread cities (depending on map size) and a few additional settlers ready.
It's not necessarily viable but I think it'd definitely be fun

 

[AnaNg]

It did sound like fun, but as I got to looking at it, like Seph it seems more like a Civ Urban Legend than anything

But what the heck, may as well give it a shot!

 

[jimbob27]

Its impossible, people were just BSing. Until I see a turn by turn analysis of at least ten different games on ten different settings (I don't mean 10 total games, I mean 10 games on one setting, ten games on another, etc etc ), with screenshots of every single turn, I won't believe that its viable except under the most ideal of circumstances.

Yeah, I don't think it's a serious tactic.

It sounds more like something people do when they're bored of playing the game regularly. Drop down a couple of difficulties from your normal level, and I'm sure it's possible.

 

[Figaro]

Perhaps a more viable alternative would be to move your capital to the new world but not liberate your original cities. Odds are you'll end up with far more cities in the new world than in the old, so the colony maintenence on the original cities will be comparatively low (plus they'll already have courthouses etc. to deal with the maintenance).

If there's only room in the old world for 4/5 cities then the maintenance won't be crippling at all.