Is it worth it to switch to a different capital duchy?

[Vseras]

Is it worth it to switch to a different capital duchy?
It's my first game and I'm in Tuscany.
Flanders is apparently considered the best one, but it's a bit behind in tech.

19 Military, 20 Economy, 19 Culture
vs my
24 Military, 31 Economy, 29 Culture.

How long would you estimate for it to catch up if I were to set all my council to research tech (spread rate)?

 

[MarkDey]

Personally, I don't think that's too far behind. If you focus on technology, it should catch up relatively quickly, especially if you include the Spymaster to research in Constantinople or somewhere similarly tech rich.

I wouldn't switch capitals if it was, like 3 or 4 boxes behind in everything.

 

[jhhowell]

Tech is pretty trivial, a spymaster parked in Constantinople will make Oslo the tech capital of the world in less than 200 years, for example.

The value of a capital duchy is in the massive levies you can raise from getting the capital duchy (and county, as much as possible) bonus on as much of your demesne as practical. A capital county with as many holding slots as possible, plus a duchy with as many counties as possible, is ideal. Jibal and Baghdad are the best, but in Europe, Flanders and Sicily are both excellent.

 

[Vseras]

Tech is pretty trivial, a spymaster parked in Constantinople will make Oslo the tech capital of the world in less than 200 years, for example.

The value of a capital duchy is in the massive levies you can raise from getting the capital duchy (and county, as much as possible) bonus on as much of your demesne as practical. A capital county with as many holding slots as possible, plus a duchy with as many counties as possible, is ideal. Jibal and Baghdad are the best, but in Europe, Flanders and Sicily are both excellent.

How much does tech in your other demesne counties that isn't the capital matter? Just what buildings you can build?
Just as an experiment I've tried to spread cultural advances to one of my bordering counties of the capital and it really isn't budging.
And the potential new capital I'm looking at seems to have built a bunch of cities instead of castles. Is it messed up?

 

[MarkDey]

How much does tech in your other demesne counties that isn't the capital matter? Just what buildings you can build?

I think that's true.

And the potential new capital I'm looking at seems to have built a bunch of cities instead of castles. Is it messed up?

That's not ideal for raising levies from castles, but it is good for being a great source of income. Placing your Steward in a county with a bunch of cities will get you more gold than if those holdings were castles.

 

[jhhowell]

That potential capital site with extra cities is not a good capital site. It could be a fine additional county to have in your demesne, for the extra income as MarkDey says. I'm building up Sjaelland like that in my Scandinavia game.

Yes, tech in other demesne counties matters for the buildings. So you do want it, and it will happen naturally, but they'll always be significantly behind your capital. Another reason besides the capital county levy bonus to want to stack all the castles you can fit into your capital county.