Why fight beastmen?

[ChiefCurrahee]

I must be missing a piece of the lore or something.

I thought the threat was coming from the empire, not the beastmen.

in the story missions we were seeking the aid of the beastmen tribes, now we're raiding them?

Any lore masters able to fill me in?

[Betelgeuzah]

The beastmen are about to attack us. The Empire is about to attack us.

The Empire also wants to destroy the Primals. So the Primals will probably make the beastmen attack the Empire.

It's a three-lock war and we have no choice but to fight.

[Genz]

Lorewise, relations between city-states and beastmen tribes are indeed far from an open war (they're cold, and getting colder because of some points in the scenario). They're slightly different between ixali/kobold/amaalj'aa too (kobolds are nearly unmentioned by NPCs, amaalj'aa seem to be the most "friendly", and Ixali are the "worst" because of the beliefs of Gridania)

But it's hard for most MMO-players to have "monsters" you can't kill. Developpers are either obliged to kill coherency (same thing happened in FFXI : it is said that Windurst is trying to build peace with the the Yagudos, but you can just go kill the first you see in front of Windurstian gatekeepers), or write a very simplistic (manichean) lore.

[Endemerrin]

It seems a lot of people overlook the fact that the city-states themselves have rather loose treaties with the beast tribes. They're more than willing to go to war with the tribes.

Everyone just remembers that storyline wise we tried to make peace with the beastmen, so going to war with them makes no sense in their eyes. However, it was the Path of the Twelve that attempt peaceful negotiations with them, not the city-states.

The Path of the Twelves are far from a majority, and are an underground organization. Just because they don't want to go to war with the beastmen, doesn't mean the city-states (and by proxy, the Grand Companies) won't.

[Genz]

It's the path of the twelves that attempt negotiations, but it's negotiations to keep running the trade of crystals which profit to about every artisans in Eorzea.

[Anonymoose]

This is what we'd call a plot device. Eorzea has to choose. Do we believe the beastmen, put our differences aside, and wipe out the empire despite our past quarrels? Or do we believe the empire, put our differences aside, and wipe out the "false gods" despite our past quarrels?

FFXIV is based on the city states of Greece and the decisions they had to face when facing Persia. This is a way to build tension and doubt - it's good storytelling, imo.

[Ferth]

City-states trade with Beastman tribes for crystals.

Beastmen use crystals to summon their deities.
-As tension with Garlemalde increases (Garlemalde has basically sworn genocide on Beastman tribes) Beastmen are hoarding their crystals to help defend against Garlemalde.

City-states need crystals for production, so they are more aggressively trying to acquire crystals from Beastmen.

As the Garlean threat becomes more pronounced the tension between the City-states and the Beastmen increases as both try to prepare defenses for the impending invasion.

[MariyaShidou]

Faction Leves, Local Leves, Gridania Guild Quests, Story Missions and some Side Quests show that all Beastmen including Kobolds are constantly harassing the three city states as retaliation over relation gone sour. They attack Merchant Caravan, Hamlets, raiding Camps (Crimsonbark for instance) or just outright attacking like Amaal'jaa (with 100% extra Fire Drake NM).

And the last time we were seeking aid from Amaal'jaa, they tried to sacrifice us to Ifrit. That's not a sign they are going to be buddy buddy with us now are we?