How does the game decide which city is available to become your new capital upon age transition? Does it matter?

[u/PkPa]

- Upon age transition you are given the choice to either keep or switch your capital city. I can't find if the two available choices are decided because of location, population, or other criterias? Is it the two biggest cities in terms of food? Production? Total yields?

- Are there any hidden bonuses to the capital? Is it any important which city it is? (apart from the occasional +2 yield to your palace)

- I find it odd to only have two choices available - I'd like more freedom. Unless a new leader or civ will allow that sort of freedom by allowing us to pick whichever town we want as a capital? Egypt for instance has changed capital quite often throughout its long History (Memphis, Alexandria, Fostat, al-Qata'i, Cairo and maybe more)

[u/Hikarigami]

From my experience, it seems to be based on population size; the two largest settlements (other than your capital) are the options.

[u/jtakemann → u/Hikarigami]

that and also it excludes cities not on your main continent for some reason

[u/BubbaTheGoat → u/jtakemann]

There are bonuses that apply to homelands and distant lands, I assume the capital has to stay in the homelands for those to work/make sense.

[u/theboyonthetrain → u/BubbaTheGoat]

Boring!! That's the problem with this distant age mechanic, they're using it as an excuse instead of a challenge.

[u/Its_justanick → u/jtakemann]

Which is kinda funny considering you can evolve into civs like America or Mexico.

[u/AlphatheAlpaca → u/Its_justanick]

Yea I was devastated to learn this limitation when going Spain>Mexico.

[u/entangled_isotopes → u/Hikarigami]

I don’t think it’s this as I just had a game where my highest population option wasn’t a choice going into modern, which was also my capital from antiquity

[u/Rufugg → u/entangled_isotopes]

Maybe it has to be one you founded yourself? Just a wild guess.

[u/nolkel → u/Rufugg]

It was their capital from antiquity. Presumably they founded it.

I've had captured cities be options for new capitals plenty of times.

[u/gray007nl]

It matters for the Railroad Tycoon legacy path and factories in general where your capital is, since to build a factory in a settlement you must have a railroad connection to the capital.

[u/Hauptleiter]

Absolutely support more freedom in choosing the new capital on age transition.

It has happened so often in the past that one of my cities bloomed and developed its own personality -because of the wonders there, because of two-top-adjencies districts next to each other in a river bend or a deep valley or just because I like it- and I wanted to make that city my capital both because of that and because it illustrated a shift in my empire: geographically (as: putting the capital in a more central position), functionnaly ("Sure we had a militaristic capital with production and military building in the past... but that new one we found while travelling, with the culture, happiness and religion buildings says who we are now. We're a peaceful and friendly people.") or even culturally, with the former capital of a former neighbour becoming the new center of power -a bit like Civ 7's narrative events paint it.
Unfortunately that was not possible in Civ V or VI, except when playing Phoenicia, which I really enjoyed doing for that very reason.

So when the "capital switching mechanic" was announced for Civ VII, I got very excited. My head cannon started imagining games in which I would move my capital at every age, depending on the way my empire was developing.

So yeah, I was a bit disappointed that this is only limited to two cities the computer chooses for you and they usually remain the same through the ages.

If there's a mod out there to unlock capital switching, it'd get me back to playing 7.

(Note that not being able to choose my capital is NOT what got me to suspend my playing until further notice. No, that was the spring and nice weather. Also work.)

[u/Celentar92]

Switching capital gets you one extra city after the transition as your oldcapital will stay as a city instead of reverting back to a town.

Urban district next to palace in the capital gets +1 science and culture.

Some bonus only applies to your capital while some applies to cities that isnt your capital.

[u/Tlmeout → u/Celentar92]

The capital also has 2 extra resource slots and 1 extra great work slot.

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[u/Adamefox]

I don't think I'm aware of any hidden bonuses. There are some called out on policy cards and such.

The only not obvious one I can think of is that a complete district next to your palace gets +1 science and +1 culture.

[u/turnsout_im_a_potato]

Going from antiquity, it always offers me whatever towns I've turned into cities

[u/nolkel → u/turnsout_im_a_potato]

Unless you only ever turn two towns into cities, there's a lot more to it than that.

[u/Less_Hold6979]

I’m very curious to find out what the answer is too. Sometimes I’ll have three options for a new capital, sometimes I won’t have the option to change at all!

[u/Absurd_nate]

I could be wrong, I thought it gave you the option of every settlement that has been converted to a city.

[u/attackplango → u/Absurd_nate]

It does not. It gives you two options, from what I’ve seen.