Ken, thanks for the input. Either way .. he's gonna be MUCH closer to persuading him back than I am. If I knew for a fact that the 'capture city' transfer would work, I'd strip out my wall defense and do it .. but I don't want to go through all of the effort and still wind up tossing his hero into the perverbial 'bit bucket'.

Still looking for some mastermind to weigh in on the topic and confirm/deny whether it's feasible either via the in-game mechanics (city capture) or administratively since I'm just trying to be a nice guy.