Since the “society stage” will resemble the medieval age more than the “Industrial age” will, I think it would be fitting to also include worldwide conflicting ideals already in the society stage. I reckon that religion would be the driving force in any war on the planet at this stage but I am also interested in what others think about what I just wrote.
Edit: grammar
In addition to religion, an obvious but important thing that sparks wars is resources. This might be implemented by the members of the “clan” (leave me alone I couldn’t find a better word) searching in a certain radius and if they don’t have enough of a certain item they might declare war against the nearest and most lively clan.
I mean, usually a nation would start trade relations if they were less aggressive. But then again something can come up and start a war.
Agreed, but that brings up the unrealated point that it is most likely MORE likely for an aggressive civilization to conquer their own world because a less aggressive one would probably fall prey to their world’s creatures. But then again thrive is all about making new and unexpected things.
Holy wars are just another generic war type. You could wage a war because of economic reasons, because of resources, or even because another nation insulted you. It just adds to the list of excuses, along with “why not? we didn’t have a war in a while!”.
I’m just saying we shouldn’t just single out holy wars, because they use very similar reasoning to other wars which usually boil down to “I want this, but he won’t give it to me, so I’ll take it by force!”
IIRC the religious crusades were basically a ‘why not?’-war. The church decided that the infighting between the various christian castles all over Europe was becoming too much, so they organized a crusade in order to have all of the counts and kings and the like send off their troops and basically blow of some steam
“It’s for morale” (insert more text so that people don’t think I’m wasting space)
That’s the point, global war reasons/excuses. If we have allies/enemies in the same specie I think we should have some kind of religious head (player decide who/what?) who’s word is law that can arbitrary decide things like “great holy wars” (for whatever reason). Unite the whole specie under one banner and march off towards some imaginary enemy.
If you ask me I honestly think that a full scale war like a crusade in such a period of time like the middle ages wouldn’t be possible without inducing a collective fear in people. For example a fear of suffer eternally in hell if they do not comply with orders.
Edit: this is of course assuming that my specie is following more than one global religion.