@cychwa_klaymberg said:
I’ve implemented this in a somewhat simplified way. .... , and then you can build the unit itself from that gate.
Does this add depth to the game? No. You could churn out a thousand tech tiers, with each one simply rendering the previous one obsolete. That way, instead of having 50 units that become irrelevant just 10 minutes into the match, we could have 500. That’s great, right?
In my case, this was the easiest approach to prevent players from "spamming" these units and abandoning standard armies, since the gates themselves are very expensive.
The fact that approximately 50 objects become obsolete every 10 minutes is normal; it's a necessary element of the game. If you exclude this, you'd end up with C&C – generals. So, some of the game's depth still relies on this approach.
The explanation for this "depth" is as follows: as you advance to the next tech level, new mechanics become available, and objects similar to the previous tech level receive a significant stat boost. This, I believe, is also a significant part of the game's depth.
Initially, advancing between tech levels was quite expensive, enough to build a small army and make it difficult for an opponent who decided to level up first. Nowadays, advancing between tech levels is relatively cheap, in favor of match speed.