Even for folks who never play a mod, getting events in the game will add solidly to replayability.

Many times, an event turned an ordinary game of GC2 in to one of my favorite maps. (I admit that I tended to shun-via-reload some events, like the Jagged Knife late-game on an Immense map--technically recoverable, but oh the clicking...)

I very much agree here. The game really does need to support random events of some kind. Though I think that Elemental is in a unique position to implement something very cool here. In Galciv or the Civ series, random events took the form of simple world changes - the additon of planets, the change of a tile, the destruction of buildings. Yet, Elemental could support these world changes, as well as supporting randomly triggered quests or spawning minor factions.

So why is that a bad thing? The underlying engine is supposed to eventually become the foundation of GalCiv III. Events and mega-events are significant GC2 features that would be missed by many of us if they are absent in GC3.

If I'm following you even halfway well, the modifiers you say would need to be added could possibly also go a long way towards making the magic system more fun. Summoning a lost city from the past or raising a fortress full of undead from the bones of an ancient battlefield seem very well-suited to the roots Elemental talk about end games that were deliberately 'unbalanced' and balanced well with a game that started in the ashes of a war based on using and abusing powers exactly that wild and woolly.

OK, misunderstood you because modding is not important to me. My support for events in the game is from a single-player, sandbox, mod-free perspective. We don't even have a real random map system yet, so events seem all the more important to replay value.

What's realistic is almost a silly question when it comes to software. It's really about what the decision makers prefer to authorise. Software is profoundly flexible, but people and budgets are not.

Okay, so how much time and effort is needed? I think that one of the major changes brought on by Fallen Enchantress should certainly be a global effect system of some kind. And if they work on it for the expansion, it is only a few hours of extra work to add it to the original, right? FE is still in a design phase as I understand it and features are still being decided on. If Stardock took a pole of what users found most fun about TBS, they would absolutely find global events at the top of the list. Its just one of those features that wow an audience.

I have seen a couple of posts on the forum asking why they should buy this game. I would really like to tell them about how cool the global events are. How they tie so many elements of gameplay to each other. How they can totally turn the game on its head just when you think you have it all figured out. How it pushes interest in the world, long after season 1500. I want to be able to call this game the best I have ever played.

So what do we have to do to persuade them to at least consider the possibilities?

Any devs have thoughts on this topic?

+1 vote for global events

If we get this global events thing moving we can even make a later global event that gives a 3,00,000 gildar bonus to the Capitar's elite, you know, to keep the incentive for economic growth. We wouldn't want them switching sides.

Things I'd like to see

- Magic influenced by ages. Sometimes a certain type of magic becomes stronger, sometimes it becomes weaker. Occasionally all magic becomes stronger, occasionally all magic becomes useless.

- Revolting cities breaking off from their factions and forming their own citystates. This would happen in high-level cities without defense that suffer from starvation (making denying food to your enemy a valid tactic).

- High-value Goodiehuts that spawn between territories that the player must race against the AI to pick up. The location must be held for X turns before the reward is given.

- The death of children in accidents. Yes, inconvenient. Yes, random.

- Forests, swamps, deserts - growing/shrinking over time, changing the environment. A slow process to make the world seem more organic.

Yes!

I really like the idea of an Arch Demon running amok, attacking everything in site and leaving a trail of destroyed land in it's wake ( an Arch Angel could be used in Empire lands, leaving beautiful green meadows with butterfly's ).  The demon that is recruitable by Kingdom cities is a powerful unit, with a few minor tweaks, it would take a concerted effort to bring it down.

I like the idea of NPC's getting fed up with their masters and going rouge, especially the adventurer/assassin class if forced to sit idly in a city for over 100 turns.