You're missing the point

You're missing the point, by confusing complex with complicated, and deep with numerous. It's possible to make the game more deep and complex, while, or by, removing surface numerousness. Complexity has much more to do with the balance and relationship between the extant choices, than it does with the simple number of said choices.or wow At some point, as you increase that number, the added difficulty in balancing between the larger number of choices is likely to decrease the resultant complexity. You're looking for that sweet spot, where you have chess, and not tic tac toe on the 'fewer relevant choices' side, or some overly complicated WW2 simulation board game on the "too many choices and rules" side, either of which is much more shallow than chess, despite one being simpler and one being more complicated.