I will preface this post with the disclaimer:

I did a brief site search with the words "relocate headquarters" and this concept did not come up as a result.

In some recent public games, I have been moving my HQ around mid late game where I have an abundance of manpower & money to do so.

I have two reasons for doing this.

1. If I need certain resources for unit creation & construction of buildings, moving my HQ to a city that has said resource will increase morale of the city and thus increase production of said resource as the city morale gradually increases. I use this as an alternative / in conjunction with building arms industries and / or bunkers which take up resources that I need for other builds or unit creation.

Once the city's morale boost is maxed out from the relocation. I will move it again to another city for the same effect.

2. If someone is planning to attack my HQ city and I am relocating it, this can throw them off of their plans, or they will have to adjust / change their plans. Much like the castle move in chess. For those of you who do not play chess, think of the arcade game whack-a-mole.
Or, to use a martial arts analogy (karate) keeping your opponent off balance is a facet of successful self defense.
A moving target is harder to shoot / destroy than a stationary one.

If you want to try this, a few things to consider:

At first I will move my HQ to a city that is the best to defend against attack. Away from port cities and away from bordering countries. I move my HQ around to port cities only when I have a healthy amount of units to defend it (navy, air force, ground units).

I suggest you have a reasonable reserve of manpower & money when doing this. If the city you are relocating to gets attacked and may be conquered, you have the resources to start the relocation to another city.

Finally, compared to annexing cities solely for increased resource production, I feel moving my HQ is more efficient to do so. Why? I suggest people do a search on annexing cities on this forum.

KFGauss wrote:This sounds like a decent, low-cost way to rob Peter to pay Paul - Which can work well when Peter is richer than Paul.

If I understand the effects well enough, I'm thinking that

• The city that receives the new HQ starts with a 80-90% morale (around day 6-ish), it can realize a nice 25% to 11% production boost that grows over the 7 to 5 days after the HQ effect kicks in.
  
• Unfortunately, as you pointed out, you can only give one city that bump and each city losing the HQ would see the process work in reverse
  

I'm basing those estimates ^ on the morale growth data in the graph in this post: Simulating Resource Output, Building Construction, and Unit Mobilizations

Do those estimates line up well with your in-game experience?

• Hmm, Your starting morale numbers are higher than mine. For example I am playing a BG USA map right now as Florida on day 3. Current morale of Orlando is 73%. I am at war with 4 nations, down from 6. The first few days got sloppy. However there are times when I do declare war on multiple AI & player countries at the beginning of the game to conquer cities and provinces fast. Thus resulting in a lower comparable morale than you mentioned above, in the 73% +/- approximately. However the rest of your numbers seem accurate in terms of how the morale will rise.
  

Waiting for morale to max out at each new location (5-7 days) while making several HQ-moves would take a long time, and that has me scratching my head a little.

• At the risk of getting too long winded, I used "maxed out" to get the concept across. I painted in broad strokes, so to speak. I use this as a way of predictive budgeting. I already know what units I want to research and then build. These HQ moves are done before the need arises for those resources ideally. To your point of the "process will work in reverse", yes it does but those resources are not in demand at the current time, or I build a bunker in that city to cushion the fall of morale.
  

My general attitude is wanting to win as quickly as possible. For small maps that means wanting to squash all threats by around days 15-20, for larger maps that time stretches out to the day 30-40 period. Of course, the enemy gets a vote too . . .

• Small maps, usually 22 days. Larger, usually 40 +.
  

I think that if I followed your outline, I would/could probably only squeeze in a couple of moves in a small map, and maybe 4 or 5 in a large map.

Do your games typically last longer than mine have so far?

• A little bit more. I have a feeling you have your war plan of action more dialed in than I do. You have been playing longer and have more experience. I am still experimenting and trying different unit combos, strategies, tactics, etc. Although, I think I have much of it worked out.
  

Have ever tried simply ping-poging the HQ location between two cities every 2 game-days (it takes 36 hours to move the HQ)? If you did were you able to keep both city's morale in the high 90s?

• I have not ping ponged, but with the use of bunkers (not just lvl 1 bunkers at times). If I recall properly, have been able to get cities into the 90% - 95% range for several days. I should clarify. I will move the HQ to a city and then lets say for example, build a lvl 2 bunker after the transfer to keep the morale up. Then the process continues. Ping ponging between two cities to see if high 90s is achievable, does sound like a fun experiment.
  

To elaborate further:

I go through build & research phases in my games. I will try and balance my army, air force, and navy builds as needed.

Let's say for example I know I am going to build more navy & air force to do the balancing. The HQ will be moved to either electronics or components cities, or one from the other based on what resources I need or am lacking.

I also go through research phases, where the focus is for the most part is research.
This is where the relocating the HQ to a rares city along with bunker builds would be implemented, or alternatively supplies if those are low.

One other thing to note as well, is that relocating the HQ to a different city will have a supplemental boost to nearby cities as well. To start with an uneven two for one. Therefore, I might get a boost in morale in resources I need in an adjoining city, then relocate the HQ to that adjoining city. Much like a ladder or steps in boosting morale (bad analogy?).

**I should have been more clear in the initial post with stronger emphasis that I do this HQ relocating in conjunction with building bunkers, often time past lvl 1 bunker builds.

***One other thing I do, is that after I defeat a player opponent who has zero vps left, I switch my diplomatic status from war to peace which impacts morale positively. The game must be refreshed / reloaded after doing so to see this effect after doing so, this also applies to AI countries as well.