Mechanically speaking, Regnitz should be superior to Burgrave and Burgrave should be an alternative for HRE to rebound and go on the offensive when the player loses map control early game (which is a very likely scenario if you are going against French, Rus, or Mongols with their ability to mass cavalry early game). But Burgrave isn’t good for that said purpose.
Burgrave’s offensive capability isn’t better than Regnitz. Here’s why:
From a pure resources standpoint, Burgrave palace only saves you 750 wood (Barracks 150 x 5). But it’s really less than that because you need to build at least 1 rax to get MAA upgrades to be halfway decent. So let’s say it saves realistically 600 wood. That’s just 2 rams to add to your attack or 1 mango. It does not give any economic boost. Regnitz basically can save you up to 750 food (50 food x 15 villagers). BUT you can reallocate workers to other tasks while getting the gold trickle, which gives you more resources to do an aggressive castle age push with higher mass of units. Sure, your attack will be a minute of two later than Regnitz push, but 3 relics in Regnitz can get you a game-ending army.
Here’s my proposal, with the idea in mind that Burgrave should still be inferior (in the long run).
- Upon completion, all Castle age men-at-arms upgrades are instantly researched
- This is to 1) give a bit more resource boost and 2) increase the effectiveness of timing push
- Also, less need to build another rax. Gives you more wood to build a couple magoes as well for more offensive capability.
- Spears health upgrade is made available Castle age (but not free)
- If HRE lost map control, it is due to mobile cav-centric civs backed with a good number of archers. Existing spears should have a chance to be upgraded.
Overall, with these changes, Burgrave palace wouldn’t be OP or be superior to Regnitz. It will simply be a solid alternative to Regnitz when the HRE player has lost map control and go on the offensive to rebound.