[jimbabwe]

I've never played empires, but I've watched many a mmorpg mature. I'm taking examples from DAoC here. They had points you could earn through pvp victories, and you could buy skills with them. Thus you could square off with an opponent, and they would appear equivalent to your skill, however they would be victorious because of these inherent, and invisible abilities.

I think an interesting idea to try would be to implement some sort of expendible items(potions, etc.) you could buy with pvp points. Thus they're not permanent additions to your character, but would improve your ability temporarily, not creating a series systematic failures for the other characters.