But, if my memory works right, then Magdeburg was choosed by King Gusvavus, not by Mike. It seems he wanted to make a political statement of some sorts about that city (Magdeburg begged for his help, but Gustavus was delayed by German nobilities so he couldnt send helps in time, which lead to the Magdeburg massacre.) So the main reason behind “Magdeburg is capital” is political and propaganda more than anything else.

Beside it’s just some years (1632-1635) into the stories. They can always choose another city as capital in future, assuming that political contraption can remain. Me, I think political and economic upheavals from Russia will affect Sweden greatly, which lead to diminishing Swede influences in Europe and even more changes in the years to come. Magdeburg is just a temporary capital, for a few decades at most.

That’s the reason why it was out of the question for New York or Philadelphia to be capital of the US in the 1790′s, despite the expense and inconvenience of moving off to an empty swamp on the Potomac. On a smaller scale, it’s also why State capitals are typically little hick cow-towns in the middle of the State — Albany and not NYC, Springfield and not Chicago.

If NYC or Philly _had_ been made the capital of the US, there would probably have been civil war a lot earlier, and the country would have broken up. Too many people out in the boonies hated places like that and hated and feared the people who lived in them.

Look what happened in France — at least three times you got supposedly democratic revolutions based in the capital city, whereupon the rest of the country voted in conservatives and/or monarchists and/or Bonapartists.

The Paris mob then typically rose against the government chosen by the country as a whole, followed by incidents like the Paris Commune when peasant soldiers officered by provincial ‘notables’ ended up blasting their way into Paris and slaughtering the local radicals, usually with considerable glee. Vichy was powered by the same hatreds. The resentment of ‘La France Profond” for the capital isn’t dead yet by any means.

France was a country that had a radical-left capital city in the midst of a very conservative landowning-peasant and small-town-bourgeoise country. Once the initial phase of the Revolution gave those groups what they wanted they became invincibly status-quo minded.

The US of Europe is going to be like that, only in spades and with the landowning nobility still a real social force.

Mike’s setting up a lot of conflict. He’d be better advised, IMHO, to put the political capital in some quiet, green out-of-the-way place like Bonn or Heidelberg where the legislature wasn’t exposed to pressure from street mobs.