Today, I want to share the second of three or four dev diaries about RICE’s next flagship flavor pack,
Nubia: Heirs of Kush! Today's dev diary covers the second situation, the Baqt, and some new historical characters for the 1066 start date and flavor associated with them.
Before I start, I want to give a shout-out to two great mods I’m collaborating with for this update:
- Ibn Battuta’s Legacy, a map mod by fellow veteran modder Elvain that focuses on careful map changes that keep vanilla’s feel, and includes plenty of improvements to Africa, including in Nubia
- Africa Plus, an African flavor mod I’ve worked with before, created by BlackEmperor but is currently maintained by iFrunx.
Now, let’s move onto the dev diary! Feel free to also check
my mods' website,
discord, and
twitter for more info, previews, and updates!
Credits also to Ethnicities and Portraits Expanded (EPE) and Community Flavor Pack (CFP) for some of the character assets used in the screenshots below.
Title and History Changes
Before we dive into the meat of the Baqt mechanic, I’d like to mention a major change for Nubia I’m adapting from Ibn Battuta's Legacy: specifically, Nubia’s de jure setup has been revamped so it no longer consists of one kingdom, but two –
Makuria in the north, and
Alodia in the south. These two, along with Blemmyia, now comprise a new empire of Nubia.
Generally, I avoid modifying de jure boundaries at game start like this, partly so the mod plays a bit more nicely with other mods doing similar things. However, I felt this was necessary to better depict the situation in Nubia.
Due to various issues with Nubia’s character history in vanilla (for instance, some Nubian rulers are dead decades before they likely died IRL), I’ve also integrated Africa Plus’ title history for the Makurian and Alodian royalty, and even expanded it with more family members.
Lastly, besides this, I’ve lightly increased the development of several Nubian counties particularly in Alodia, and made Alodia feudal rather than tribal at game start. A few Muslim sources noted at some points, Alodia was even more prosperous and powerful than Makuria, so it’s odd to have them more “primitive” than Makuria in-game.
The Baqt Situation
Let’s move on to the
Baqt situation! But what is the baqt, you ask?
In the 7th century, when the Rashidun Caliphate tried to attack the kingdom of Makuria twice, they were met with such resistance that the two sides agreed on a treaty, called the Baqt, which led to peace between Egypt’s Muslim rulers and the Nubians for at least six centuries.
The Baqt is sometimes seen as a Nubian tribute payment (even vanilla has Makuria as Egypt’s tributary), but recent scholarship suggests it was often an equal exchange of goods initially, and became a tribute payment in later centuries as Nubia weakened. And, in contrast to portrayals of the Baqt as an enduring, signed peace treaty, it might not have been a written agreement; even if it was, both sides frequently broke it by raiding and invading each other plenty of times.
The Baqt Situation thus simulates centuries of political and economic relations across the Nile. It is divided into two regions,
Egypt and
Nubia. Anyone with a capital in either region can participate, and involved rulers are split into two groups:
African rulers, for those with culture of sub-Saharan African heritage; and
Egyptian rulers, for everyone else.
Initially, I made it so only certain religions like Islam and Christian, and cultural heritages, like Arabic and East African, could be “involved.” However, I realized this wouldn't adequately address alt history situations such as if Tengri Mongols or Crusaders rule Egypt? Furthermore, there’s credible speculation that the baqt was influenced by earlier, similar agreements between the Romans and the ancient Kingdom of Meroe in Nubia.
Baqt Interactions
The core feature of the Baqt Situation are three interactions that African and Egyptian rulers can have with each other in exchange for a 10 year truce:
- Propose Baqt Exchange: request an equal exchange of goods from both sides
- Demand Baqt Tribute: ask the other side for goods
- Offer Baqt Gift: give the other side goods
Each side can provide different goods, represented as character modifiers with varying effects. Though many goods were exchanged as part of the Baqt, I wanted to stick to a few that were important or interesting. Each good is also associated with a certain skill:
| Associated Skill | Egyptian Goods | Nubian Goods |
|---|
| Diplomacy | Textiles | Exotic Beasts |
| Martial | Foodstuffs | Metals |
| Stewardship | Olive Oil | Ebony |
| Intrigue | Wine | Slaves |
| Learning | Glassware | Ivory |
| Prowess | Horses | Animal Skins |
The chances of rulers accepting any interaction depend on a variety of factors. Your skill level and the other ruler’s skill level in its associated good influences the chances of them accepting, too. The intent behind this was so that you don’t have the same chances of succeeding every good. Narratively, you can think of it as rulers being able to better assess what goods to give or get based on their expertise or experience.
Obviously, you can get offers yourself from the AI as well. If one side proposes an equal baqt exchange, the other party can choose what modifier to give in return.
Baqt Catalysts and Effects
The Nile River Situation is relatively simple in the sense that it doesn't have any real catalysts, and its phases are determined randomly. After all, it's not like you can control the Nile. But as for the Baqt? The inhabitants of the region have a lot more ways to influence how that turns out.
Originally, I had three phases for the baqt (which you might’ve seen in earlier preview videos or pics). I’ve since reworked it so the baqt has only two phases –
Sufficiency and
Insufficiency – as I decided three phases for each of the two regions was unnecessarily complicated. They represent how able Egyptian rulers and Nubian rulers are to engage in Baqt exchanges, and how likely they are to use or accept the different Baqt interactions:
|| || | |
Egypt: Sufficiency|
Egypt: Insufficiency| |
Nubia: Sufficiency|Both sides prefer an equal exchange of goods|Nubians prefer to demand tribute and accept gift offers, Egyptians prefer to offer gifts and accept tribute demands| |
Nubia: Insufficiency|Egyptians prefer to demand tribute and accept gift offers, Nubians prefer to offer gifts and accept tribute demands|No strong preferences for any from either side|
An important catalyst is who actually rules in each region – for instance, if there are Nubian rulers in Egypt or vice versa. A key stipulation of the Baqt was that Egyptians could not enter Nubia without permission from Nubian authorities and vice versa; in other words, both sides agreed to respect the traditional border of Egypt and Nubia at Aswan. While people from both sides broke this provision frequently, things started to really fall apart in the 13th century with Nubia’s decline and the increased presence of Arab Bedouin tribes in Nubia.
Various decisions and activities, including the decisions related to the Pastoralists we talked about in the previous dev diary, or religious acts like local pilgrimages, also serve as catalysts, similarly to the struggles.
The Nubian-Egyptian Frontier
Historically, the Eparch of Nobatia in Makuria and the Governor of Aswan in Egypt played an important role in maintaining the frontier between Nubia and Egypt for their respective monarchs. These correspond to the Dukes of Nobatia and Counts of Aswan in-game, and holders of these titles have a greater role in influencing the Baqt Situation – even more than their lieges! – through a special trait they automatically get:
Lord of the Mountain and
Governor of Aswan respectively.
These two traits are levelled, and there are a couple ways to gain experience in these traits. Passively, any time a successful baqt interaction is concluded, you’ll gain a little experience; this experience is increased if you yourself are an involved party. Of course, this experience is only gained when you hold the relevant titles.
If that’s too slow for you, and if you have either trait and control land in the duchies of Nobatia, Naqis, al-Said, or the Eastern Desert (aka the border duchies), you’ll have access to a decision to
Perform Administrative Nile Border Tasks. There are eight options for what you can do, five of which are associated with a skill:
- Correspond with Counterpart (Diplomacy)
- Fortify the Border (Martial)
- Oversee Land Sales (Stewardship)
- Scrutinize Travelers (Intrigue)
- Process Complaints and Requests (Learning)
- Send Report to Superiors
- Encourage Cross-Border Traffic
- Discourage Cross-Border Traffic
These simulate day-to-day business these border officials would’ve been involved in. If you’ve played RICE’s Sicilian Frontier struggle, you’ll notice the similarity with the decision to Manage the Sicilian Frontier, where each option corresponds to a skill; unlike the Sicilian version, skills don’t enable different options here – instead, skills determine the level of success or failure.
For instance, if you correspond with your counterpart across the border with high diplomacy, you’re more likely to receive a positive response, improving relations and maybe even getting an ally or gifts in return. If you have low diplomacy, the opposite could more easily happen. If you’re on the receiving end, you can decide how to respond too, and the game will randomize whether the letter sounds positive, neutral, or negative (weighted by the sender's diplo stat) to help you roleplay your reaction.
We have many documents from medieval Nubia and Egypt attesting to frequent communication between the governors of Nobatia and Aswan, from formal diplomatic gifts to requests to extradite fugitives. The language of the letter in the event above is actually a combination of two such letters, quoted almost in verbatim – I hope to make use of more of them in these events, for more historical immersion!
1066 Egypt
Speaking of the Banu Kanz, let’s look at the region in 1066 and the new flavor for its rulers. In 1066, the Egypt region of the Baqt situation is in the Insufficiency phase, representing what a later Mamluk scholar and student of Ibn Khaldun, al-Maqrizi, called the
al-Shidda al-ʿUẓma or “Great Calamity:” an age of civil war, anarchy, famine, and low Nile floods. It was so bad the Fatimid Caliph, still nominally Egypt’s ruler, purportedly had to survive on charity, and members of his household died from starvation. Though possibly exaggerated in later accounts, this was no doubt this was a time of great upheaval.
Fatimid princes no longer control most of Egypt; instead, it’s ruled by military factions, most prominently the Turkic and African units. The most powerful commanders of the Turks include
Nasir al-Dawla, a descendant of the Arab Hamdanid dynasty, and the Turks
Yaldakush and
Ildekuz, who later killed him.
The Africans, who control southern Egypt and eventually lost the civil war against the Turkic units, were allied to
Rasad, the Fatimid queen mother, former slave concubine, and de facto ruler for decades who was of African ancestry herself. I only found one source listing the African units’ commander, a certain
Futuh Nahid al-Dawla, who I’ve made Rasad’s friend to represent this alliance. Also, Rasad gets a special modifier,
The African Queen Mother, to represent her unique situation.
Another powerful commander, though one initially removed from the main action, is
Badr al-Jamali, a general of Armenian ancestry stationed in the Levant, who already exists in vanilla.
Badr, Nasir al-Dawla, Ildekuz, and Yaldakush share an aspiration to
Become Egypt’s Military Dictator, by eliminating, vassalizing, or befriending your main rivals and becoming regent. Conversely, Futuh Nahid al-Dawla’s aspiration to
Preserve the African Units’ Power requires you to ensure Rasad – or yourself, if she dies – is the regent alongside neutralizing the others. If you don’t know, aspirations are mini-quests/event chains RICE adds for certain historical figures that encourages (but does not force) you to roleplay them in a historical way.
There’re also other Turkic, Berber, African, and Arabic vassals (some historical, some fictitious) to represent factions in the Fatimid Civil war that were somewhat divided by ethnic lines. One is the aforementioned
Banu Kanz, who were independent in vanilla and unrealistically (in my opinion) controlled too much land south of Egypt; their territories are reduced, and they’re now Fatimid vassals. Historically, they sided with the losing African army units, though they survived.
In our timeline, when Nasir al-Dawla, who’s now a bookmarked character, ousted Rasad from power, he made overtures to the Seljuks and Abbasids and may have even wanted to overthrow the Fatimids. After his murder, this anarchic era in Egypt only ended when Badr al-Jamali swooped in to restore order as vizier and de facto military dictator. Will history turn out differently if you control one of these factions?
1066 Nubia
Across the border in Nubia, things are less chaotic, though it is still a very dynamic era. The late 11th century saw the rise of Georgios, a royal Makurian prince and Archbishop, who used his influence to encourage the ongoing trend of Nubianization, an embrace of native traditions in contrast to the strong Byzantine and Coptic influences of the previous centuries. In-game, Georgios is a duke-tier vassal of the Makurian king; though unplayable as a theocracy, he gets a unique modifier,
The Royal Makurian Archbishop, as a nod to his real-life authority.
As an aside, archaeologists have actually discovered Georgios’ tomb in Makuria. It was filled with Christian inscriptions in Greek and Coptic, and contained the mummified remains of several men; though we cannot identify the bodies, one of them is likely the Archbishop himself.
Besides Georgios, another figure getting some flavor is
Marianos (or Marianou in Nubian), the Eparch of Nobatia in 1066 and a bookmarked character. He is attested in documents, in particular a letter he sent to his vice-eparch
Mena through his scribe and high-ranking official
Angelosinkouda, asking Mena to locate and capture fugitive slaves belonging to a man named
Teniellasi. All three men were added as Marianos’ vassal and courtiers, respectively.
At game start, Marianos gets a mini-event chain related to this incident. I wanted to give the player a taste of the kind of run-of-the-mill work border the governors of Nobatia and Aswan would’ve handled, like catching fugitives, bandits, and others deemed criminals, and to also emphasize the harsh reality of historical slavery.
As Marianos, you’ll decide whether to take the case, and who to send to notify Mena, like Angelosinkouda. Success depends on your and Mena’s skills. You can also ignore the situation, or take pity on the slaves if you catch them, though these obviously have consequences too.
Besides Georgios and Marianos, there are other new vassals in Nubia, mainly historical officials or persons dating to this period who are attested in documents or inscriptions.
1066 Darfur
The final new bookmarked character for 1066 is
Kusbur, a legendary Daju king who led the migration of the Daju peoples from Nubia into Darfur (at least in one version of the legend; other versions have other kings).
Kusbur starts with a simple aspiration to
Lead the Daju Migration into Darfur, focused on expanding your control over Darfur to supplant its Tora/Proto-Fur inhabitants, a process which according to legend was completed sometime by the 12th century.
Conclusion
Although that was a big wall of text, I hope you enjoyed our little exploration of the Baqt Situation, and the historical situation in Egypt and Nubia in the 1066 start date!
Work is progressing well on this update, but it’ll be a while before it’s completed – hopefully before All Under Heaven comes up. Just to give an example, I originally wanted to discuss historical characters and their flavor in all the start dates in this dev diary, but there’s just too much to cover. In fact, this update might have the most flavor I’m ever adding in any RICE update for historical characters. For instance, there will be
at least 12 aspirations, if not more. Thus, I decided to save Nubian historical flavor for 867 and 1178 for the later dev diary or two.
In the next one or two dev diaries, besides the 867 and 1178 historical content, I’ll go over some of the general cultural, religious, and political flavor coming to Sudan with the Nubia flavor pack, such as new decisions, activities, and more – I look forward to sharing all that with you!
Selected Sources for Further Reading
Due to the many sources I am using, I’ll have a more complete, extensive list in the last dev diary. I’ll share the same list of sources I had last time that I believe are a useful introduction.
- Beyond the Nile: Long Term Patterns in Nomad-state Interactions Across Northeast Africa, Julien Cooper
- The Christian Nubia and the Arabs, Małgorzata Martens-Czarnecka
- General History of Africa, III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century, UNESCO
- General History of Africa, IV: Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century, UNESCO
- History of the Nuba, Nanne op 't Ende
- The Kingdom of Alwa, Mohi el-Din Abdalla Zarroug
- The “Lord of the Mountain:” A Study of the Nubian Eparchos of Nobadia, Benjamin C Hendrickx
- Medieval Christian Nubia and the Islamic World: A Reconsideration of the Baqt Treaty, Jay Spaulding
- The Nubian Past: An Archaeology of the Sudan, David N. Edwards
- Old Dongola: Continuity and Change From the Medieval Period to the 21st Century, Tomomi Fushiya
- Palaces in the Mountains: An Introduction to the Archaeological Heritage of the Sultanate of Darfur, Andrew McGregor
- Short History of the Church of Makuria (Mid-6th–Early 12th Century), Włodzimierz Godlewski
