A friend mention this idea to, I liked it so I post it here for him here. He suggested that buildings could received more hitpoints per a research upgrade. Make sense when you think that weapons effectiveness rises during game due research too.
I smell warcraft 3 influences but no matter...I'd rather have the buildings get more fortified rather than increase hitpoints, but that'd require another model for the buildings
Hmm. Let's consider the effect on gameplay... At the moment, in the long term, buildings get easier to destroy as the game continues, since weapons get better and buildings don't. Do we want to change that? I'm not sure we do. We want the game to end, don't we? I also think that it's sort of good that balance and gameplay change as the game continues... having all the numbers increase by the same amount would make things dull. What's the point of having your weapons get +1 attack and everything you shoot at with them get +1 defense? You haven't gone anywhere. At the moment, bases start out lightly defended; you can rush light tanks and do some damage, but in general, they're not a huge threat to an organized team. Later on, as mediums and heavies with better weapons start rolling out, you need better defenses and have to push the front forward, since letting a group of fully-equipped heavies get a direct bead on your barracks or VF can be fatal. This encourage people to build up base defenses for later on, without letting early rushes dominate the game. Is there a reason to change that? Now, I can see some 'coolness' factor to buildings getting tougher (would an engineer have to go back and 'repair' them to fill in the new HP max, by the way?), but in terms of gameplay impact I'm not sure it's a good thing.
Who will be able to afford the time and money to research this and to pick the upgrade if that will be an option instead of automatic? the winning team. This suggestion means that the losing team, often having difficulty researching or keeping a radar alive now has enemy buildings twice as tough to destroy as yours are. I don't see how it makes empires any more fun either.