I see two possibilities, right now (looking still at the gameplay.constants file GeoFan77 referred me to).

1. There are a variety of pirate throttles, which affect both raid strength and timing.  You could probably throttle strengths way down, while shortening timing.  They'd still depart the pirate base.

2. I also see a variety of settings for "rebellion" there.  What I don't yet see is a way to set rebellion so it can be toggled into effect for all players.  If you could do that, and adjust the force compositions (which it looks like you can do, including making it pirate ships), you'd have your "low intensity war."

It would be necesary to edit the files below to reference your names.

1. string file.  this is where the names are stored.

2. galaxy scenario file.

3. gameplay.constrants

all of these files work in concert with eachother for the above mentioned issues. with out editing all of these files you will encounter issues like the ones mentioned above.  I will warn you about making sure that all of the roletypes and stat types are similiar to stock settings especially with the rebel raids or it may cause the game to sieze up and dump.

Oh sorry I misread your post, I thought you meant planet names, not player names. I don't know I haven't really tried it.