Agreed. I know some people hate events for some unfathomable idea, so I guess it would be wise to do it like in Galciv2, where events are optional. That'd make everyone happy, I suspect.

Personally I love events, especially big ones. They're a test to my player skill, to see whether I can adapt to the situation and still conquer myself,  and they create great immersion as well.

Same here. Those events really add flavor to a game. Moreover the probability of a particuliar event should be linked to the way you play. Not enough "nature" structures in your empire? You'll probably have so nature wrath soon or later. Lots of magic buildings? You'll probably have magic related events.

An event creator would also be really cool.

Events are a must.

Take King of Dragon Pass example. That is almost a game entirely driven by events. 

Of course, not saying do that here but lots of events help add flavour to the game and can really help show off the lore of the game.

This is just one example of the events that King of Dragon Pass dishes out that end up as a chronicle for your tribe. Some are funny! 

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/p.calay/badend.txt

It would be plain awesome if your population celebrated the birthdays of your heroes. Especially the dead ones, if they killed a lot of enemies.

I'd love a calendar I could view to look for dates like this (a pretty version of GC2's Events tab), but there's a lot of griping about "unimportant" pop-ups from the GC2 forums. I can imagine a similar response from the "more 4X" side of this game's audience.

Now if you're talking about something with substantial effects, like double-speed recruiting during the month of a major hero's death anniversary, that might not get so much griping on the "that pop-up's stupid" channel.

One of the strengths of choosing a fantasy scenario, is that you have the opportunity of dragging players into the world, by creating a vibrant, living world, through events, sounds, graphics etc.

Space is much more tailored to straight 4x, simply because most of the game entities are either "technology" or basic blocks of important (planets/resources).

In fantasy games, things like culture and history are a much more integral part of the narrative. So, personallly i dont see how you would create a succesful fantasy game, be it 4x or something else, withtout working on supporting the creation of in game cultures and history.

If you do not do that, you will end up with a generic fantasy world, with no dynamics, where an "infantryman" or "longbowman" is just another name for a combat entity template.

in my opinion, this is the biggest threat to elementals succes. Don't forget that fantasy environments need to support game- emergent culture and history, to really make the settting work on a higher level.

there's a lot of griping about "unimportant" pop-ups

Who says it has to be a popup? There could just be a small notice sliding in at the top o the screen, and then sliding out again after a few seconds. Then you could check the details in a calendar.

or "Herald news" running news-bulletin style at the bottom of the screen, once in a while

I didn't assume a pop-up, just used the example from GC2 as a way to point out that the potential audience will probably include folks who like to complain about Too Much Information--folks who don't want the UI to draw their attention actively unless there's something for them to do right then. I'm *not* that kind of player.

And the more I think about it, the more it seems like a rich calendar system could do a lot towards building the immersion factor that I agree will be essential to Elemental's success.