Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4701109-20131221042550/@comment-24302820-20170109023758

I am quite aware that Colt isn't a part of the Association. The socioeconomic factors affecting city size don't really care about politics, unless crossing borders is strongly and violently prohibited. I pegged Colt as a possible contender for largest barony in part because of its proximity for external trade, but also because it would make more sense for Colt to think it can strike out on its own if it were the largest &/or wealthiest.

While capitals are often the largest city in a nation--occasionally second largest--it's causal in the other direction. That is, countries tend to make the largest their capital, more than being the capital causes a large influx of new citizens. There are a few instances where the capital isn't the largest (Brasilia, Washington, and Bonn come immediately to mind) but not only have none of these cities been national capitals all that long, but two of them were artificially created specifically to be its nations capital. As for the third, Bonn not only selected as an interim capital over Frankfurt in large part because Frankfurt was already too big, powerful, and influential, because the West German leaders thought that having a smaller temporary capital would make a hoped-for reunification easier. It's also worth noting that a reunited Germany immediately took steps to move the capital back to Berlin.