Command & Conquer

Another negative effect is it would make Veterancy no longer any form of achievement.
Veterancy is ment to reflect a unit's increased skill due to its experience on the battlefield, and that would be nullified and by passed if veterancy could just be purchased.

The Forgotten mod did have a Training upgrade which did this for a few infantry,giving them level one veterancy, which may be acceptable, but buying higher levels would render veterancy "worthless"

It's similar when you litter the map with loads of veterancy crates, and why in early C&C4, almost every unit dropped a vet crate when killed. It rendered it way to common and less of an achievement.

Also why that veterancy support power for GDI is so OP.

Veterancy reflects your skill at keeping your units alive, which is not evident by an upgrade.

Another alternative would be rewarding players for keeping a particular unit alive. Finish a mission with a veteran unit and be able to call on the same unit in the next mission perhaps as a support power. Possible balance issues however in that I don't know how this could be fairly applied to multi-player.

I liked it like it was in Generals, where certain units could get 1 free veterancy at the cost of Generals points.

@GeneralSGJist
I dont think you read the part where I said it would COST MONEY. And not just a little,to become fully promoted it would be ATLEAST TWICE the units original cost. Yes this bypasses the so called "acheviement" of ranking up units in combat. but think about if you will,A mammoth tank,cost 2200 to start with. And I want to promote it all the way that would be around 4400 or 4500. Also,ever heard of something called "cost effectiveness"? If I just spam fully upgraded units and they get killed,I have just thrown away alot of resources. Which is why you would want to be careful with them just like you would before,to keep cost effectiveness. Make sense now?

It does make sense but I think I like the achievements better...but this could be included as an option for which ever way you wanna play the game.

I like my veterancy like loyalty and friendship: It must be earned, not bought.

^
I understand the idea perfectly, my position still stands. It doesn't matter how much the base cost of a unit is or how much money you needed to pay to do train its veterancy level.

As soon as you allow the buying of veterancy, the principle of veterancy is undermined to some degree. It is no longer something that reflects your skill in managing an army, it may say something about how you manage your economy, but that is beside the point.

It's making what should be an achievement, more of just a stage in your upgrade tree.

Veterancy is meant to reflect battlefield experience, and in the real world, experience can't be purchased, especially not battlefield experience, training is one thing, experience is another.

What I can potentially agree with is "Training levels" which the unit gets trained, and then it's chance of becomeing a veteran slightly increases, given their training.

They still must gain battlefield experience, but their training just helps them, as it should in real life.

Such an upgrade would increase the time it takes to build the unit, as well as the cost.

I stand with you, GeneralSGJist. Some ingame things can't be purchased, especially experience. What's the point then?? This BLOWS the idea of unit ranking and COLLAPSES balance, even if you make this ability archexpensive...

Veterancy is a stat boost granted for surviving encounters and killing enemies. What you describe is a simple upgrade, no need to tie it in with veterancy, as this has the added downside of making the veterancy system broken.
Plus, it basically is just a stat boost upgrade - they don't make for good game design. Ability/feature upgrades, like the TOW-launcher or Scrin Shields, make games much more interesting and appealing and offer real tactical choice.

Yep, keep veterancy as earned. The problem with buying experience, no matter the cost, is that if an army successfully hoards resource (good RTS component), he or she can also sit by idly making units and fully promoting them without actually fighting. Then once you've developed "veterans" that have effectively done nothing, you can steamroll the enemy with overpowered units with no expectation of fighting beforehand. No action for first hour of game + slaughter in the last 2 mins = win... bad idea, to be honest.

buying veterancy for units makes the game unbalanced

No but if yes then they should make it like in generals where factory units are made with a promotion

Veterancy should be earned through the amount of experience a unit gains in battle. And it should be earned because it proves that they are a valuable asset to your army.

Just having the ability to purchase it makes the game unbalanced.

I think veterancy should be erned the first two levels and then bought the final level. seeing as units usaly an upgraded weapon. in real life it would cost money to upgrade it.