This is the third, final dev diary about RICE’s next flavor pack, Sicily: Where Three Worlds Met. In dev diaries 1 and 2, we covered the Sicilian struggle. Today, we’ll go over more miscellaneous features in this update instead, such as new activities, buildings, historical characters, and more!
Liminality Dynasty Legacy
The last time RICE introduced a new dynasty legacy was way back with the Tarim Basin flavor pack in 2022. Now, a new one will come with the Sicily update, called Liminality.Liminality has both general bonuses, and those more specific to the Sicilian struggle’s mechanics. For instance, the 1st perk in this legacy, Populus Trlininguis, doubles trait XP you gain in the Sicilian Signore trait (a trait given to every ruler in Sicily) from various actions in the Sicilian struggle. It also improves interfaith opinion, and the language learning scheme.
The five perks in this legacy are:
- Populus Trilinguis
- Latifunda
- Incastellamento
- Nostalgia
- Grand Signores
Activities
Pilgrimage to Monte Gargano
Some of the new activity-related content has to do with previously introduced activities in RICE. For instance, Christians in Sicily now have access to their own local pilgrimage, to Monte Gargano in Foggia in southern Italy.
Historically, the main destination for pilgrims was the sanctuary for Saint Michael there. As one of the earliest centers of pilgrimage dedicated to the Archangel Michael, it served as a model for future, similar pilgrimage sites, such as Monte-Saint-Michel, an Abbey in Normandy that RICE already added a local pilgrimage activity for.
Baths of Baia
Another one of RICE’s general activities is the Visit to the Hot Springs. For those unfamiliar with this RICE feature, it is an activity that can be done anywhere in one’s realm, but going to certain baronies gives extra bonuses like useful modifiers. The barony of Naples, will now be one such site, for the baths of Baia.
Baia was a popular resort for centuries, and during both the ancient and medieval era, it had a negative reputation as a place of decadence and sin. While both male and female visitors were criticized in historical sources, the latter generally faced greater scrutiny and disapproval.
Thus, while you’ll get a beneficial modifier from visiting the hot springs in Baia, the modifier has a malus to piety and opinion, and the malus is doubled if your gender isn’t considered dominant by your faith. If your faith meets certain requirements, like having the hedonist tenet, you get bonuses to piety/opinion rather than maluses instead.
Ancient Tombs
There are also two new activities. One, available to anyone in the region, is to pay a Visit to the Crypta Neapolitana. In medieval times, people thought the poet Virgil used magic to build this tunnel, as he was venerated as a powerful sorcerer in medieval legend. People also believed his tomb was nearby, and visitors from near and far came to his supposed tomb, which also became a local site of Christian worship.
Going on this activity lets you choose between two intents, that provide different modifiers: to be either Inspired by Virgil, or supposedly be blessed by Virgil’s Miracles.
Virgil’s legendary tomb isn’t the only tomb you can visit, however. In the city of Palermo, you can pay a Visit to Palermo’s Ancient Tombs to similarly gain minor bonuses and modifiers. It is available only to those who have territory on the island of Sicily, and has two options: the tomb of the philosopher Aristotle, or that of the physician Galen.
Ibn Hawqal, a 10th century Arab geographer and scholar, observed that the main mosque of Palermo (previously the city’s main church) had a wooden beam where Aristotle's supposed coffin was suspended. Ibn Hawqal further notes how Christians venerated this Greek philosopher and prayed to him for rain.
Meanwhile, Galen’s purported tomb lay Misilmeri, a short distance from Palermo on the road to Agrigento. A useful source making note of this was that of al-Harawi, an Iranian traveler from the 13th century.
Special Buildings and Modifiers
Several special buildings have been added to the map in southern Italy. Generally, I spread them out with roughly one per duchy (with the exception of Sicily), representing different aspects of the region’s history, and buildings that I felt would be more relevant for the time period.
The buildings, and the baronies they are in, are as follows:
- Arch of Trajan in Benevento: One of the finest and best-known surviving examples of a Roman triumphal arch.
- Monte Cassino in Cassino: One of the most influential Christian abbeys during the high medieval period.
- Mount Etna in Catania: One of the tallest active volcanoes in Europe; the land around it is particularly fertile.
- Royal Palace of Palermo in Palermo: A magnificent example of the fusion of Islamic, Byzantine, and Latin artistic styles. It is not built at game start.
- Generic University in Salerno to represent the Salerno School of Medicine, arguably the most important medieval European center of medicine, drawing from Latin, Arabic, Greek, and Jewish medical traditions.
The Salerno School of Medicine is also represented by a special county modifier in Salerno to represent its unique influence on medieval Europe and as a scholarly crossroads of different cultural traditions.
Nearby, the county of Naples has the Phlegraean Fields modifier, representing the famous resort region discussed earlier.
Historical Characters and Flavor
Several historical characters have been added across both bookmarks, and some come with flavor. I won’t list them all here, but I’ll mention a couple of the more interesting ones.Rulers
For new playable rulers, in 867 we have Uthman. Historically, he ruled the Emirate of Taranto and may have harbored a defeated Emir Sawdan – the new bookmarked character in 867 if you recall – if Sawdan wasn't executed or captured by King Louis of Italy. Taranto was later conquered by Christian forces in 880. As Taranto is in the county of Bari in-game, I opted to make Uthman a vassal count of Sawdan.
In 1066, Robert Guiscard is no longer the owner of Bari. In real life, Bari was controlled by the Byzantines until 1071; I assume PI has it otherwise either for balance reasons or to reflect how the Byzantines mainly controlled the region’s coastline. Anyhow, the new “count” of Bari in 1066 is Aboulchares, the second to last Catepan of Italy, who historically led the Byzantine defense against the Normans admirably. Based on his name, he was likely of Arab origin.
Courtiers
Aaron or Abu Aaron is a Jewish mystic and scholar in the 867 bookmark who was prominent in southern Italy at the time. He starts off as a courtier and friend of Sawdan, the Emir of Bari.
A few years after game start, if he is in your court, most likely that of Sawdan, you’ll get an event where he’ll try to return to his homeland in Mesopotamia. In Jewish sources, the locals, including Sawdan, tried convincing him to stay, with Sawdan going as far as attempting to forcibly detain him, but nothing came out of it. If Abu Aaron is allowed to go, or successfully escapes an attempt to detain him, then he’ll go to the court of whoever’s holding Baghdad.
Constantine of Africa is a Christian monk and physician of North African origin (and possibly a convert from Islam) in the 1066 bookmark. He played a prominent role in the translation of medical texts and the development of Salerno’s school of medicine mentioned above.
Starting Flavor
There’s also some other flavor to flesh out the historical situation in 1066.To represent the aforementioned Norman attack on Bari, there is a new county claim war at the start of the game in 1066: the Norman Conquest of Bari. While the Byzantines do outnumber Robert Guiscard, the attacker, he’s been given extra troops at game start and the ERE is fighting a two-front war as they’re also being invaded by the Seljuks.
Next, in 1066, a random selection of counties North Africa, particularly those controlled by or near the Zirids in Tunisia, will start off with a hit to control and a modifier called Chronic Ifriqyan Famines that reduces control and development. There is a small chance every year they’ll disappear.
The modifiers encourage you to take the interaction to ask for grain shipments from Sicily discussed in the previous dev diary, since if you’ve done so recently, it’ll increase the chances of your counties losing the modifier significantly.
For some historical context, as was also discussed in the previous dev diary, North Africa was increasingly dependent on exports of grain from Sicily in the 11th and 12th centuries.
Minor Decisions
There are a few minor flavor decisions that can be taken, besides the struggle-related ones discussed in dev diary 2.
First, rulers near Salerno can take the decision to Support the Medical School of Salerno for a cost, which gives a beneficial health. There’s a chance you’ll get further modifiers, artifacts, or even a physician courtier for free. This chance is increased if you own Salerno. This is also one of the few ways you can get a boost to all tracks of the Sicilian signore trait at once.
Lastly, there is a minor decision to Construct the Admiral’s Bridge for rulers in Palermo. The Admiral’s bridge, impressive back in its day, and, interestingly, was the site of a major battle during Garibaldi’s expedition during the Italian Unification in the 1860s.
The decision grants you and Palermo modifiers for a while. Historically, the bridge got its name from how it was built on the orders of George of Antioch, one of the most powerful officials of the Kingdom of Sicily in the 12th century who was given the title of Great Admiral or Admiral of Admirals. However, some recent scholarship has casted doubt on this, and the bridge might be older, perhaps even dating back to the Islamic period.
Concluding Remarks
That concludes the final dev diary!Following the Sicily update, if time permits, work will start on a minor patch to add in miscellaneous features and bugfixes. The next planned flavor pack after Sicily is on the Zhangzhung and the Bön religion of ancient Tibet.
ETA for the Sicily content will be at the end of the month (though possibly early next month, depending on time/energy). Despite the large size of this update, there’s a lot that will be cut for time, that I might add in future updates. Until then, I’ll continue to post further previews on my discord, twitter, etc.
Thank you all for your time!
Selected Sources for Further Reading
As promised in the previous dev diaries, here is a full list of sources I’ve used (so far) on Sicily since I started researching for this update half a year ago.General History
- Forgotten Connections? Medieval Material Culture and Exchange in the Central and Western Mediterranean, Alexander Metcalfe and Mariam Rosser-Owen
- From Islam to Christianity: the Case of Sicily, Charles Dalli
- Migrant Society to Island Nation: Sicily, Charles Dalli
- Playing with Identities in the Multilingual Place–names of Medieval Sicily, Paolo Martino
- Where Three Worlds Met: Sicily in the Early Medieval Mediterranean, Sarah Davis-Secord
Byzantine Sicily
- Convivencia between Christians: the Greek and Latin Communities of Byzantine South Italy (9th–11th centuries), Annick Peters-Custot
- Greek and Latin in the urban and rural epigraphy of Byzantine Sicily, Kalle Korhonen
- Greek in Sicily in Late Antiquity, Alessandro De Angelis
- Hegemony, Elitedom and Ethnicity “Armenians” in Imperial Bari, 874–1071, Nicholas S.M. Matheou
- Sicily in a Mediterranean context: Imperiality, Mediterranean Polycentrism and Internal Diversity (6th-10th century), Lucia Arcifa, Annliese Nef and Vivien Prigent
Islamic Sicily
- Adab as Social Currency: The Survival of the Qaṣīda in Medieval Sicily, Nicola Carpentieri
- Arabic in Sicily, Alex Metcalfe
- Arabic Sources for Sicily, Jeremy Johns
- Before the Normans: Identity and Societal Formation in Muslim Sicily, Alex Metcalfe
- Four Sicilian Documents — Three Kalbid and One Norman — from the Qubbat al-Khazna in Damascus, Nadia Jamil & Jeremy Johns
- Fragile Borders Beyond the Strait: Saracen Raids on the Italian Peninsula (8th-11th century A.D.), Giuseppe Perta
- Hindered Passages: The Failed Muslim Conquest of Southern Italy, Marco Di Branco and Kordula Wolf
- Ibn Hawqal in Sicily, William Granara
- Insularity: A Literary History Of Muslim Lucera, Karla Mallette
- Narrating Muslim Sicily: War and Peace in the Medieval Mediterranean World, William Granara
- New Insights Into Early Medieval Islamic Cuisine: Organic Residue Analysis of Pottery From Rural and Urban Sicily, Various Authors
- Pacem Portantes Advenerint: Ambivalent Images of Muslims in the Chronicles of Norman Italy, Jesse Hysell
- Pagans and Infidels, Saracens and Sicilians: Identifying Muslims in the Eleventh-Century Chronicles of Norman Italy, Timothy Smit
- Political Martyrdom and Religious Censorship in Islamic Sicily: a Case Study During the Age of Ibrahim II (261-289/875-902), Giuseppe Mandala
- The Arabs in Malta, Stanley Fiorini and Martn R. Zammit
- The Fatimid and Kalbite Governors in Sicily: 909-1044, Hiroshi Takayama
- The Ibadiyah in Muslim Sicily, Nardo Chiarelli
- The Muslim Colony of Luceria Sarracenorum (Lucera) ~ Life and Dispersion as Outlined by Onomastic Evidence, Giuseppe Staccioli and Mario Cassar
- The Muslims as Others in the Chronicles of Early Medieval Southern Italy, Luigi Andrea Berto
- The Muslims of Medieval Italy, Alex Metcalfe
- The Muslims of Sicily Under Christian Rule, Alex Metcalfe
- Third/Ninth-Century Violence: “Saracens” and Sawdan in Erchempert’s Historia, Christopher Heath
- What Became of Medieval Sicily’s Arabs? Genetic Demographic Evidence, Louis Mendola
Lombard Sicily
- Historiography of Disillusion: Erchempert and the History of Ninth-Century Southern Italy, Walter Pohl
- Lombard Aristocracies’ Foundations In Capua, Nicola Busino
- Lombard Independent-Mindedness in the Face of Uncertainty: Coping with the Unpredictable Present Future in Lombard Southern Italian Narratives (9th–10th Centuries), Bart Peters
Norman Sicily
- Andalusi Arab and Norman Sicilian Examples of Islamo-Christian Cartographic Translation, Karen Pinto
- »Byzantine« versus »Imperial« Kingdom: How »Byzantine« was the Hauteville King of Sicily?, Annick Peters-Custot
- Contriving Coexistence: Muslims and Christians in the Unmaking of Norman Sicily, Charles Dalli
- Cultural Syncretism and Ethnic Identity: The Norman ‘Conquest’ of Southern Italy and Sicily, Joanna H. Drell
- Language And The Written Record: Loss Survival And Revival In Early Norman Sicily, Alex Metcalfe
- Multiculturalism and Power Relations: Reframing Norman Sicily, John Aspinwall
- Norman Kings of Sicily and the Rise of the Anti-Islamic Critique, Joshua Birk
- The Administrative Organization of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, Hiroshi Takayama
- The Catalogus Baronum and the Recruitment and Administration of the Armies of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily: a Re-Examination, James Hill
- The Normans between Byzantium and the Islamic World, Lucia Travaini
Other
- After Wheat: Revitalizing Sicilian Agriculture through Heritage Tourism, Joshua Samuels
- Apulia [in Jewish History], Jewish Virtual Library
- Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Cefalú and Monreale, UNESCO
- Casts from the Arch of Trajan at Beneventum, W.N.B. for the Penn Museum
- Connections Between Masserie and Historical Roads System in Apulia, Lucia P. Caliandro, Rosa V. Loisi, and Pasquale Dal Sasso
- Emperor Frederick Ii, "Sultan of Lucera", "Friend of the Muslims", Promoter of Cultural Transfer: Controversies and Suggestions, Dorothea Weltecke
- Etna’s Northwestern Slopes between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Andrea Gennaro
- Frederick II and the Saracens of Southern Italy, Ian Almond
- Let’s Meet at Baiae: a Journey of 2000 Years to the Edge of Europe, Lien Foubert
- Maritime Activity Between Malta, Sicily and North Africa in the Late Middle Ages, Mark Aloisio
- Monasticism in Southern Italy (Fourth to Eleventh Century), Bozzarello Luca
- Mount Etna, UNESCO
- Palermo [in Jewish History], Jewish Virtual Library
- Satellite, Sentinel, Stepping Stone. Medieval Malta in Sicily’s Orbit, Charles Dalli
- Schola Medica Salernitana: Medicine and Culture in Twelfth Century Southern Italy, Jessica L. Minieri
- Sicily [in Jewish History], Jewish Virtual Library
- Strata and Topographies: The Arduous Interweaving of Archaeology, Architecture and the City in the case of the Thermal Baths of Neptune in Pozzuoli, Pasquale Miano, Giorgia Aquilar and Bruna Di Palma
- Syracuse [in Jewish History], Jewish Virtual Library
- The Crypta Neapolitana: Perception of a Roman Tunnel throughout History, Stefano D'Ovidio
- The Long and Intertwined Record of Humans and the Campi Flegrei Volcano (Italy), Various Authors
- The Multi-cultural Origins of the Salernitan Medical School: A Historiographical Debate, Lola Ferre
- The Sicilian Latifundia, John Paul Russo
- Water and wealth in medieval Sicily: The case of the Admiral's Bridge and Arab-Norman Palermo (10th–13th centuries), Theresa Jäckh
- 7
- 6
- 1
