Capital Cities

A capital city is, as the name implies, a city formed around the leader of the supreme government of a given state. A leader at this rank has the power to draw close to himself the ranking nobles within a nation, and even landowners who reside in the provinces spend some time in the capital city.

If the sovereign quits a city and moves elsewhere, it may remain as a city, but likely the other noblemen who attend their leader will also relocate themselves and the city will decline, sometimes to the point of ruin.

As an example, consider the decline of Moscow since the Tsar Peter the Great relocated himself to found a new city (Petersburg), at which point the population of Moscow declined by half. (EN: This is historically accurate, though after the initial decline, Moscow regained its losses and flourished as a commercial center.)