Move capital to St. Petersburg?

[Dan]

Playing as Russia for the first time, should I move my capital? St Petersburg is low dev and borders Sweden, what’s the benefit?

[Tarshaid]

From the wiki :
"Russia:

set country flag relocated_capital_st_petersburg.
loses ducats equal to 1 year's worth of income.
moves its capital to Neva (33).
gains 100 prestige.
Neva (33):

changes its name to St. Petersburg (with province capital St. Petersburg).
gains 6 base tax.
gains 3 base manpower.
changes its culture to the culture of the former capital.
if does not have level 3 center of trade
gets level 1 center of trade"

So, substantial loss of gold, but lots of prestige (might be great or uselss), 9 extra development and a center of trade upgrade (that might be worth more or less than the gold loss by itself). I'm too lazy to check the location of the trade node, but maybe that would relocate your trade capital in a more profitable node.
In terms of institutions, if you don't spawn or dev-spawn them, having more development closer to the west is beneficial for embracement; if you dev-spawn them, assuming you spent a bunch of monarch points pumping your previous capital, it must now sit at 40 dev or something, so starting over on another low-dev province (with better or worse dev modifiers) that gains up to -50% (so -25 mana) dev cost might help as well.

[Admod, the Equivocal]

Originally posted by Dan:

Playing as Russia for the first time, should I move my capital? St Petersburg is low dev and borders Sweden, what’s the benefit?

It bordering Sweden is exactly why you want St. Petersburg. It shows the world Russia's power and the fact that Sweden can't take it from you. No matter how hard they try. :)

[Аня Мефедрон]

In some extremely rare cases in multiplayer u should not
Otherwise, always should - free development

[Dan]

Excellent, thank you all, I shall move it immediately :)

[Shai-Hulud]

Just another aside, this is a particularly nice decision to take when you have low or negative prestige.

You can get this low prestige naturally, but knowing you have a decision to give you +100 prestige in your back pocket makes you more flexible in other potential prestige reducing decisions.

[bri]

Originally posted by Jumbo Chumbis:

Just another aside, this is a particularly nice decision to take when you have low or negative prestige.

You can get this low prestige naturally, but knowing you have a decision to give you +100 prestige in your back pocket makes you more flexible in other potential prestige reducing decisions.

Doing it after you enforce religion on a Sunni vassal and dump all your prestige into placating them is a good option. Of course it would be even better if subjects actually converted their lands...

[Tulduil Iphukiir]

Originally posted by Tarshaid:

[...]
I'm too lazy to check the location of the trade node, but maybe that would relocate your trade capital in a more profitable node.
[...]

Both Moskva and Sankt Petersburg are in the Novgorod Node.
So unless you started as Perm or some other unusual nation there is no change in your Main Node.

[Stormfox]

Another good opportunity to move the capital is right after you developed your original one, possibly to spawn or boost an institution there. Since the capital province always gets a strong development cost modifier, being able to abuse that for a second province is useful.

[Pozz]

Originally posted by bri:

Originally posted by Jumbo Chumbis:

Just another aside, this is a particularly nice decision to take when you have low or negative prestige.

You can get this low prestige naturally, but knowing you have a decision to give you +100 prestige in your back pocket makes you more flexible in other potential prestige reducing decisions.

Doing it after you enforce religion on a Sunni vassal and dump all your prestige into placating them is a good option. Of course it would be even better if subjects actually converted their lands...

Yeah, I hope Pdx fixes that soon. At least it gives you conversion speed of a state province if you got the DLC that allows you to convert in vassels, which is always something..?

[bri]

Originally posted by Pozz:

Originally posted by bri:

Doing it after you enforce religion on a Sunni vassal and dump all your prestige into placating them is a good option. Of course it would be even better if subjects actually converted their lands...

Yeah, I hope Pdx fixes that soon. At least it gives you conversion speed of a state province if you got the DLC that allows you to convert in vassels, which is always something..?

No doubt having that DLC makes it a worthwhile move but you only have so many missionaries...

[Pozz]

Originally posted by bri:

Originally posted by Pozz:

Yeah, I hope Pdx fixes that soon. At least it gives you conversion speed of a state province if you got the DLC that allows you to convert in vassels, which is always something..?

No doubt having that DLC makes it a worthwhile move but you only have so many missionaries...

Especially when not Muslim or Christian :(