One problem I have with this war is the hypocrisy of the Kami position.. the evil Karavan are raping the land to build a temple.. so we must do the same thing ! Within the context of the game it is fair enough for the Karavan side to stripmine these regions to accomplish their goals, especially since the regions are not our homes anyway. But the Kami cannot justify creating a mirror image with changed names.
For this to be an idealogical war, there must be real differences in the ideologies. And from the point of view of story development, neither side can be 'wrong'.
So, lets actually bring some of the rhetoric into real game affecting play.
The sources mined to create the Karavan Temples should become PERMANENTLY depleted, and the terrain above them turned into barren wasteland, forcing the miners to keep exploiting new areas (probably deplete them on some fraction of Kami Tolerance level, not just 60 - 90 mats
)And the Temples to Ma Duk should ..grow, based on the number of souls its worshippers feed to it. Karavan worshippers slain by its followers, loyal servants giving their lives for the cause... all the same to the immaterial entity that rules the Kami. Probably involve the crafters in 'binding' the souls into the building, and have the diggers produce a lower quantity of mats just to keep them involved. Justifying digging for the Kami exceeds my doublethink ability
. Any Kami digger who depletes a source should be doing damage to the Kami progress, in fact any source being depleted could harm the Kami temples.This would allow conflict on a different level, with Karavan diggers deliberately destroying the land in order to harm Ma-Duk, or avoiding the zone entirely so no souls can be fed to it. (although the Kamists can still sacrifice their own... )
).