I’ve played some free games of this type, online, not mobile games. Yeah, the build times are crazy, but it is not just to sell premium stuff. That’s part of the balancing because it is an online multiplayer game. If you could build up quicker, then some guys would be online 24 hours a day to get an edge on the competition. By slowing down the pace, it makes that strategy less effective and gives people who only log on once or twice a day a chance to compete.
It’s still a whole different ballgame from single player strategy games. The actual mechanics are very simplified for deciding battles and whatnot. The real complexity isn’t in the game mechanics, it is in the interaction between players, forming alliances, politics, espionage, and finding good leaders who can coordinate a rabble of online players. That’s where the fun (and frustrations) lie with these kinds of games.
Yeah, like I got time for that? ;-)
I remember around the turn of the century trying to form a B17 crew for an online WWII flight simulator. I just did fighter planes after that, or bombers with an “automated” crew. Flew pretty much everything ever used in that war.
But I just don’t really have the time.
I’ll sit down to a Command and Conquer Generals Zero hour 8 player skirmish at the “hard” level now and spend around an hour to beat the 7 automated players.