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ANNOUNCING RICE'S NEXT
FLAGSHIP FLAVOR PACK
FLAGSHIP FLAVOR PACK
The Nubians are Christians whose country is larger and richer than Ethiopia. The Nile of Egypt runs through their cities and regions. Their villages are prosperous and they have fertile land.
- Ibn Hawqal, 10th century Muslim traveler
- Reworking of RICE's old Nile flood mechanic into the Nile River Situation
- A Baqt Situation to simulate trade and diplomacy between Nubia and Egypt
- More cultures and faiths to depict the diverse peoples of medieval Sudan
- New historical characters like Moses Georgios, king of united Makuria and Alodia in 1178
- Decisions, activities, events, and other flavor to bring Nubia to life
- ... and much more!
Both the trailer and showcase for ModCon have been posted to my YouTube channel, too! The showcase covers some of the basics of the two new situations and the new Nubian content coming with this flavor pack. Further previews and dev diaries will be shown in the coming weeks.
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Is it possible for muslim Nubians to claim Umayyad ancestry? Like Funj did in 16th century.
Do you have some scholarly papers talking about that? That might be a good idea for a Legend. I do want to add in a few legends this time around that could be applicable to different groups so that might work out.
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Nubia Flavor Pack Preview #1
With the reveal of the Nubia Flavor Pack: Heirs of Kush at ModCon, it's time to look through the earlier clues/teasers in our usual previews!
Clue #1: Rule a fertile land once split between three groups.
This clue referred to the medieval Nubian kingdoms that arose after Kush's collapse: Nobatia, Makuria, and Alodia. Nobatia was absorbed by Makuria in the 7th century through unknown circumstances - i.e., scholars aren't sure if it was a conquest, a peaceful integration through royal marriage or an alliance, or something else.
The teaser was from an earlier version of Baqt situation's UI. I've since changed the icons. Initially, I had Nubian rulers represented as a cow, as cattle were (and are) important to the region's economy and a source of prestige. I've changed it so the cow icon now represents the Nubia region; Nubian rulers, instead, as a group involved in the situation, have a bow and arrow icon, referring to the Nubians' famed skills in archery.
As you can see, the UI is still very WIP. This is the most involved UI modding I've done ever, due to the nature of how Situations work; even though it's not a lot at all, it's a bit tough trying to get it to work. Hopefully it'll improve soon!
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The Umayyads in Mediaeval Egypt and Claims of Umayyad Origin in the Sudan
This study interrogates some genealogical traditions in the Nilotic Sudan of descent from the Umayyad dynasty in the light of the well-documented presence of Umayyad elements in Upper Egypt in the mediaeval period.
www.academia.edu
Abū al-Faraj ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn al-Iṣfahānī, the Author of the Kitāb al-Aghānī
Abū al-Faraj ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. al-Ḥaytham al-Umawī al-Iṣfahānī (died after 356AH/967CE [a]) was a litterateur, genealogist, poet, musicologist, scribe, and boon companion in the tenth century, mainly based in Baghdad. He is
www.academia.edu
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And this another al-Isfahani who possibly never lived in IsfahanThe Umayyads in Mediaeval Egypt and Claims of Umayyad Origin in the Sudan
This study interrogates some genealogical traditions in the Nilotic Sudan of descent from the Umayyad dynasty in the light of the well-documented presence of Umayyad elements in Upper Egypt in the mediaeval period.www.academia.edu
This Shi'a scholar and genealogist was said to be descended from Marwan II. However, it seems that the genealogy of the genealogist himself was lost in history, as the earliest ancestor we know about him was his great-grandfather born 50 years after the collapse of Umayyad dynasty.Abū al-Faraj ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn al-Iṣfahānī, the Author of the Kitāb al-Aghānī
Abū al-Faraj ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. al-Ḥaytham al-Umawī al-Iṣfahānī (died after 356AH/967CE [a]) was a litterateur, genealogist, poet, musicologist, scribe, and boon companion in the tenth century, mainly based in Baghdad. He iswww.academia.eduI checked 867 bookmark and didn't find his father or grandfather as an adventurer.
These should be very helpful, thank you very much! As mentioned I want to add a few legends, at least one for most groups in the region, so this could work nicely for Muslims in Nubia.
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Version 1.16.1 "Cao'an" (Released 6/17/25)
RICE 1.16.1 "Cao'an" is now out!
Steam Workshop Download | Github Manual Download | Paradox Mods Download
Discord Server | Twitter | Official Website
Please recite: purity, light, power, wisdom, the supreme perfect truth, Mani the Buddha of Light.
- Inscription dated to 1445 CE at Cao’an Temple, China, one of the few intact Manichean temples
I've a few announcements! First, I've just put out a minor patch for RICE that adds some minor features:
- Decision groups to categorize many RICE decisions
- More traditions for several African cultures that needed more
- Various bugfixes, like for Egypt's rulers if you set Egypt to admin
Other Mods' Updates
I also wanted to highlight other updates for mods compatible with RICE while I have you here.
First, Rajas of Asia, a map expansion mod into Asia that also adds a lot of Eurasian flavor, recently updated to Khans of the Steppe, including their long anticipated Caucasus update, with many new Caucasian cultures, faiths, characters, a whole honking Caucasus struggle, and more!
Next, Dharmachakra, an essential flavor mod for anyone wishing to play in South Asia, recently added new content and features and put out an update yesterday.
Lastly, the creator of Biazon Pack reached out to me to give a shout out to their recently released mod collection, which adds flavor for stuff not touched by RICE.
ModCon 2025
And lastly... whew! What a busy weekend with ModCon! Hope those of you who were there had a good time.
Thanks to the other modders, event organizers, and hosts who made it possible, and thanks everyone for the warm reception to the reveal of the Nubia Flavor Pack. I'm looking forward to sharing more on this update as I continue work and research.
Changelog
- Added RICE-specific decision groups to visually categorize many of RICE’s decisions
- Added traditions to various African cultures which only had 2 traditions
- Disabled some history, culture, and religion changes when running RICE with Dharmachakra, to ensure better consistency between the two mods
- Changed West Himalayan religion to share deity localization with Bon, rather than Mundhumism
- Hephthalite culture now has Devoted Horsemanship if Khans of the Steppe DLC is detected instead of Malleable Invasions
- Khalaj culture now has Frontier Warriors instead of Futuwaa tradition if Legacy of Persia DLC is detected
- Changthang Nomads, Cattle Kraals, and Bantu Migrators traditions now provides bonuses related to nomads/herds
- Munya Estates tradition is now available for hybrid/divergent cultures outside of Iberia if the parent culture has it
- Tweaked the Egyptian intro event in 867 to avoid various weird situations, especially related to Admin gov’t (thanks to the user “a” for the code!)
- Removed duplicate al-Farghani character from RICE in 867 Egypt
- Fixed Munya Estates tradition not being viewable in a lot of circumstances
- Fixed missing loc for RICE_manichean_fast_health_malus_modifier
- Fixed references to RICE’s old Norman Cavalry in loc, it should refer to Conrois now
- Fixed potential source of (harmless?) errors in the error logs in the Tarim Basin event code due to counties without cultures after the Roads to Power DLC
- Fixed game concept icons for Helluland and Markland using the other’s icons incorrectly (how did I not notice that after almost 3 years?)
- Fixed possible loc bug for the Buddhist decision to build a holy site
- Miscellaneous bugfixes
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Nubia Flavor Pack Preview #2
Time to go over the second clue for Nubia!
Clue #2: They fought a foe famed for victories against powerful opponents – and survived (but not unscathed).
This clue was about Moses Georgios, king of a united Makuria and Alodia, and a new bookmarked character in 1178. Before the start date, he and Saladin came into conflict, possibly because the Nubians wanted to assist the Fatimids who the famous Saladin had just overthrown. The two sides fought for some years, with devastation in both Egypt and Nubia, before a peace was concluded. However, the war may have weakened Nubia long-term.
As I already showed a full picture of the originally teased Moses Georgios bookmark in the preview pics, I'll instead show his WIP political setup. While Makuria and Alodia are united, some pagan tribes in the south are now merely tributaries rather than vassals, representing Alodia's decline in power especially over the southern tribes. Meanwhile, many new vassals have been added representing IRL officials of this period, like Adam, the Eparch of Nobatia, a powerful official managing Makuria's northern frontier, attested c. 1180-1200.
Many thanks to the Africa Plus mod which I adapted and expanded on some of this history!
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Nubia Flavor Pack Preview #3
Today, we look an obscure historical figure, one of many coming in the Nubian update, the kind where if you google their name, the only results will be, say, two random academic papers that offhandedly mention them, and RICE.
Clue #3: A new playable character in this region, known from an obscure inscription, had experience in managing agriculture.
Our protagonist is Merki, a little known civil official in Makuria in the late 9th century, whose remarkable career is attested in his epitaph. He rose from a lowly village official to become a member of the king's close entourage, in charge of financial and agricultural matters, though the exact nature of his various offices is uncertain.
Merki's life poses an interesting question to scholars about the nature of Makurian government: does his trajectory indicate some degree of social mobility in Makuria, or was he a privileged noble who went through an equivalent of the Roman cursus honorum, a predetermined series of offices for aristocrats seeking a political career
Either way, Merki, like other playable Nubian characters, will have access to a decision to Engage in Nubian Agricultural Practices with different options to benefit from the Nile River situation in different ways.
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Nubia Flavor Pack Preview #4
Today, we look at yet another historical character coming with RICE's Nubia update!
Clue #4: I'm integrating a bit of stuff from a great mod (with permission) related to a new intellectual character who used their influence to push for societal and political reforms in this region.
Georgios (1031-1131 CE) was a Makurian Prince and Archbishop who initiated major changes in the Makurian Church, and supported the 11th/12th century trend in Nubia of embracing indigenous elements in society and religion.
Georgios' burial vault at Dongola is one of the more impressive medieval Nubian tombs we've found; its walls are densely covered with protective religious inscriptions, and, interestingly, Georgios was buried with several others, but archaeologists have been unable to determine which of the bodies in the tomb is his. Anyhow, while he's unplayable, his influence is represented by making him a theocratic duke.
But wait, you might say, isn't Makuria a duchy in vanilla? Would Georgios be independent? In fact, I'm integrating a modified version of the de jure Kingdoms of Alodia and Makuria (a renamed kingdom of Nubia), and the Empire of Nubia, from Ibn Battuta's Legacy - a great mod made by veteran modder Elvain, that improves the map while keeping vanilla's feel, including some tweaks in Nubia, and is 100% compatible with RICE already. As such, Makuria and Alodia's rulers are properly king-tier at all starts and Georgios is Makuria's vassal.
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Nubia Flavor Pack Preview #3
Today, we look an obscure historical figure, one of many coming in the Nubian update, the kind where if you google their name, the only results will be, say, two random academic papers that offhandedly mention them, and RICE.
Clue #3: A new playable character in this region, known from an obscure inscription, had experience in managing agriculture.
Our protagonist is Merki, a little known civil official in Makuria in the late 9th century, whose remarkable career is attested in his epitaph. He rose from a lowly village official to become a member of the king's close entourage, in charge of financial and agricultural matters, though the exact nature of his various offices is uncertain.
Merki's life poses an interesting question to scholars about the nature of Makurian government: does his trajectory indicate some degree of social mobility in Makuria, or was he a privileged noble who went through an equivalent of the Roman cursus honorum, a predetermined series of offices for aristocrats seeking a political career
Either way, Merki, like other playable Nubian characters, will have access to a decision to Engage in Nubian Agricultural Practices with different options to benefit from the Nile River situation in different ways.
I LOVE that there is content for specifically ONE character
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I LOVE that there is content for specifically ONE character
There's going to be quite a few of those for this update
Surprisingly, despite the difficulty of interpreting the sources, the corpus of medieval Nubian texts is actually fairly impressive and enough to barely reconstruct some highly speculative info about various figures for game's purposes.- 2
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RICE 1.16.1.a hotfix for "Cao'an" is out!
Steam Workshop Download | Github Manual Download | Paradox Mods Download
Discord Server | Twitter | Official Website
Steam Workshop Download | Github Manual Download | Paradox Mods Download
Discord Server | Twitter | Official Website
This is a small hotfix for the recent version of RICE, with some other tweaks thrown in. Thanks to everyone for helping me catch some further bugs and issues.
Remember you may need to unsubscribe and resubscribe for mods to update properly (multiple times if necessary).
The hotfix should be savegame compatible if the game was started with RICE 1.16.x.
Changelog:
- Carantanian culture now starts with Forest Folk tradition
- Nepali culture now starts with Caravaneers tradition
- Kirati culture now starts with Hit and Run and Stand and Fight traditions
- Kirati culture now has stoic ethos
- Suebi culture now starts with Esteemed Hospitality and Prolific Hunters traditions
- Changed j_khd01_RICE_marriage_triggers to refer to parameters rather than doctrines/traditions for greater compatibility
- In-game flagging of Greenland/Vinland expeditions will now automatically expire after several years as a failsafe for edge cases where this doesn’t happen and prevents things like being able to do the decisions again or recruiting people to lead expeditions
- Fixed issue with appoint expedition leader interaction appearing when during Grand Expeditions or Vinland colonization (it should only appear for minor expeditions)
- Fixed Hephthalite heritage not being Serindian when running TFE with RICE
- Fixed missing placeholder loc for decision groups for non-English languages
- Fixed Hephthalites/Turco-Hephthalites not being given relevant traditions when running RICE with TFE
- Fixed localization issues with the 867 intro event for Egypt
- Fixed Shingqo Sheli Tutung learning other languages after he dies in the history code
- Miscellaneous bugfixes
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RICE 1.16.1.b hotfix for "Cao'an" is out!
Steam Workshop Download | Github Manual Download | Paradox Mods Download
Discord Server | Twitter | Official Website
Steam Workshop Download | Github Manual Download | Paradox Mods Download
Discord Server | Twitter | Official Website
This is another small hotfix for the recent version of RICE, with some other tweaks and additions thrown in (like Joachim of Fiore as a courtier in 1178). Thanks to everyone for helping me catch some further bugs and issues. Unless there are any serious gamebreaking bugs, this will likely be the last hotfix/patch until the Nubia Flavor Pack and/or the Coronation DLC, whichever comes first.
Remember you may need to unsubscribe and resubscribe for mods to update properly (multiple times if necessary).
The hotfix should be savegame compatible if the game was started with RICE 1.16.x.
Changelog:
- Added missing Spanish localization
- Added Joachim of Fiore as a courtier in Sicily in 1178
- Tweaked holy sites for off-map African faiths
- Replaced the icon for Modimoism (Sotho-Tswana paganism)
- Removed some placeholder non-Oromo names from the female Oromo namelist
- Fix to account for edge cases where the interaction to ask someone to be expedition leader could refer to two expeditions
- Fixed missing code for Oromo names
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Nubia Flavor Pack Preview #5
Last time we looked at RICE's collab with Ibn Battuta's Legacy – today, we'll do the same with Africa Plus, a mod I've worked with often in the past!
Clue #5: A new culture places great emphasis on certain kinds of sports events.
Although Africa Plus' original creator, BlackEmperor, hasn't been active for a while, the mod is currently being maintained by iFrunx, who's also involved with Muslim Enhancements (another great mod). I've been in touch with iFrunx to ensure that RICE's new Nubia additions will work seamlessly with Africa Plus.
This means integrating and expanding on some of BAP's existing cultures in the region, such as the Nuba, a catch-all for the very diverse inhabitants of the Nuba Mountains in Kordofan, a region that is in real life larger than some European countries, but in-game consists of only a few counties. One notable aspect of many Nuba peoples are their love of sport and athletic display, particularly stick fighting and wrestling. This is represented by a new tradition unique to the Nuba, Passionate Athletes. One cool modifier I discovered in the code that is unused in vanilla (to my knowledge) is for people to have an opinion boost to those with high prowess - a perfect fit for this tradition!
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Nubia Flavor Pack Preview #6
The clue we look back at today was an intentionally tricky one, but one which demonstrates nonetheless Sudan's connections with other parts of the world - past and present!
Clue #6: A man from France, a Muslim, and some Slavs
This clue refers to the church at Banganarti, an important Christian pilgrimage site in medieval Nubia that'll now have its own dedicated local pilgrimage activity, and a decision to Rebuild the Church at Banganarti.
At many medieval pilgrimage sites, not just in Nubia, visitors often left grafitti of their names. An unexpected one from Banganarti was a Catalan-speaking man from southern France named Benesec (i.e. Benedict). Unfortunately, he appears to be from the 1300s, maybe late 1200s at earliest, so I wasn't able to justify adding him in-game as a landless adventurer. If we ever do get a later start date, I'll definitely add him in! For more detailed info, see this article by Polish archaeologists Adam Łajtar and Tomasz Płóciennik.
In fact, the "Slavs" in the clues refer to Poles, as Polish archaeologists have played an important role in the excavation and analysis at many historical Sudanese sites such as these.
Lastly, the Muslim visitor refers specifically to a blind man named Ali, who visited Banganarti in the 14th century and probably paid or asked someone to leave grafitti there on his behalf, despite not being Christian. This hints at the fame of Banganarti's healing and spiritual powers that crossed religious lines.
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If you Google it you can find the various dev diaries and flavor pack guides I've done over the years, though they can be outdated and I've not been good at maintaining the latter.
You can also look at the RICE wiki here which is maintained by another mod user, it's mostly up to date but might be missing a few newer things: https://ck3.paradoxwikis.com/RICE
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Today, I want to share with you some info about RICE’s next flagship flavor pack, Nubia: Heirs of Kush! I officially revealed this update with a trailer and showcase video several weeks ago at ModCon 2025, the 4th iteration of a fan-made online event to promote and show off mods for Paradox Games.
This dev diary, the first of at least three for Nubia, will set the stage for this update and touch on one of its two new situations, the Nile River, and the new cultures and faiths in Sudan.
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 (IBL), 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 (BAP), an African flavor mod I’ve worked with before, created by BlackEmperor but is currently maintained by iFrunx.
Credits also to Ethnicities and Portraits Expanded (EPE) and Community Flavor Pack (CFP) for some of the character assets used in the screenshots below.
What are Situations?
Before we dive into the meat of this dev diary, we need to understand what a Situation is. Situations are a new gameplay system the PI devs added back in Khans of the Steppe. Like struggles, they let devs and modders create special gameplay rules and a stronger narrative thrust in a region, but whereas struggles focus on broader narrative, situations can be more flexible. For instance, struggles require you to have a capital in a region to be involved, but modders can define unique requirements for involvement in a Situation – I could theoretically make a Situation where you need to be a Han culture Zoroastrian faith with the eccentric trait and one adult child to be involved, as an example.Despite this, I think it’s best to see Situations as similar to Struggles: they’re tools for providing a stronger narrative to a region, to make a player feel like they’re part of a greater whole (rather than the sole driving force of events a la Great Man Theory), and to depict the ebb and flow of history in ways that normal mechanics can’t do as easily.
Nile River
Now, let’s move onto the actual content related to Nubia (and Egypt)!The Nubia Flavor Pack adds two new situations – the Nile River and the Baqt – which cover much of Egypt and Nubia. You’ll get a relevant notification event when involved in either or both, like for struggles and vanilla’s steppe situation; today we’ll mainly talk about the Nile River.
There is additional content for this system, however. First, and most importantly, the system now extends down the entire Nile – from the delta all the way down south, so many rulers in Egypt, Nubia, and even Ethiopia are involved. Secondly, the bonuses/maluses also account for fertility, which is important if you’ve enabled the game rule for nomads in this region.
Lastly, the chances of each flood type/phase were recalibrated. At the start of each year, one randomly chosen phase gets a catalyst adding “points” to it to make it much likelier next year, represented in-game as the Nile flood forecast. The points vary to simulate forecasts’ reliability; obviously, you might still get a different phase each year than what was “predicted”. The likelihood of each phase getting this boost is 40% for a normal flood, 15% each for a low or high flood, and 10% each for the rest of the flood types.
Agrarian and Agro-Pastoralist Rulers
There is new flavor related to the interactions between the settled farmers of the Nile and their less sedentary neighbors. In fact, rulers involved in the Nile River situation are divided into two groups: Agrarian Rulers and Agro-Pastoralist Rulers. The latter consist of those with tribal or nomadic government types, while the former is everyone else.
Agrarian rulers have two decisions to Welcome or Ward Off Nile Pastoralists. Both options give county modifiers with bonuses and maluses. The first option lets you get a small, random amount of event troops, including men-at-arms, if you are willing to pay extra money. The first option also improves the opinion of nearby tribal or nomadic rulers, while the latter decreases it.
Agro-Pastoralist rulers, meanwhile, represent a more mixed group; often, pastoralists in this region still engaged in some agriculture, and weren’t always pure nomads. They have two similar decisions: to Protect or Plunder Nile Farmers. Both give county modifiers with bonuses and maluses too. The former increases the opinion of nearby sedentary rulers, while the latter decreases it, but gives you a random amount of gold.
In both cases, if you do one decision, you can’t do the other for 20 years, so choose carefully! Also, note the cost of these decisions fluctuate based on what flood type or phases the Nile River situation is currently in.
These decisions represent the complex relationship between more settled and pastoralist communities in this region. While we often think of the Nile in the context of agriculture, and rightly so, pastoralists made great use of the Nile river, and as a result played a major role in Egypt and Sudan’s economy and politics – certain nomadic Arab or Beja tribes subjected Coptic monasteries in Egypt to frequent raiding for example, yet other tribes would staunchly ally to these monasteries and protect them to the death, despite not being Christian oftentimes!
Nubian Culture
Nubian culture has undergone some major changes. First, it now has a unique tradition called Heirs of Kush to replace Agrarian, as the Nubians’ counterpart to the Egyptians’ Children of the Nile tradition added a while back. Heirs of Kush has several bonuses; one is that decisions to interact with local farmer or pastoralist communities give bonus prestige based on your rank. Another bonus is that it unlocks the decision to Engage in Nubian Agricultural Practices.
This decision has four options:
- Expand Nile Irrigation Networks
- Maintain Hafirs
- Import Cattle
- Breed Cattle
- Xenophilic has been replaced with Linguists, representing medieval Nubians’ knowledge of not only their native Nubian language, but also Greek, Coptic, and Arabic.
- Religious Patronage has been added representing the close ties Nubian elites fostered with the Coptic Church. For instance, Nubian royalty feature prominently in church artwork, and Makuria even invaded Egypt in the 8th century, when they heard the Coptic Patriarch was in trouble with Egyptian authorities; the Muslim governor had to release and dispatch the Patriarch to the Nubian army to convince the Nubians to turn back.
- Lastly, Warrior Queens (which enables female preference succession) and equal martial law are removed. It’d work for ancient Nubia which had many queens, but Christian Nubia had no attested female rulers save for maybe one in the 1500s; they had matrilineal succession that went uncle to (maternal) nephew, but it’s debated when this (re-)started in Nubia – and rulers were still male. You can still add Warrior QUeens tradition to your culture later in-game if you wish, of course.
Nilotic Cultures
There are other new cultures, some from Africa Plus, to better represent the situation in Alodia, the southern Nubian kingdom, and regions even south of that. Unlike the less heterogenous northern kingdom of Makuria centered on the Nile valley, Alodia’s zone of influence stretched into savannas and highlands inhabited by a kaleidoscope of peoples, whose relationship and “border” with Alodia is greatly uncertain to scholarship at the moment.
There are several off-map new cultures to represent other branches of the Nilotic speaking peoples, too. I've tried to represent most major groups, but this list is subject to change:
- Luo
- Ateker
- Kalenjin
- Karo (Bari)
- Maasai
- Sirikwa
Other Nubian Faiths
To address a big elephant in the room – there'll be no new faiths for the Kushite religion, as adding faiths to existing vanilla religions requires me to touch vanilla code, which I won't do for compatibility reasons. I also want to focus on the more relevant faiths of the time period, like the Christian and Muslim Nubians, though I won’t rule out adding a bit of flavor for Egyptian/Nubian pagans if I have time. However, mods like Africa Plus already improve Kushitism and add more Egyptian/Nubian pagan faiths to the religion, so I recommend those!
- Nhialacism to represent the beliefs of the Dinka and other related West Nilotic peoples, adapted from Africa Plus.
- Kujurism as a catch-all for the religious traditions of the diverse peoples of the Nuba mountains.
- Akujism for the beliefs of the off-map Nilotes. It is off-map.
Darfur’s Cultures and Faiths
We now move into the Darfur region, which had political and economic ties with medieval Nubia, though the extent has been debated.The Daju are an existing culture in vanilla, but their tradition setup has been revamped. The spread of their culture now varies by start date, to reflect their arrival in the Darfur region from Nubia – at least according to oral tradition – by the 12th century; i.e., earlier start dates have Daju counties more in Nubia; in later start dates, there are more in Darfur.
- Kalgeism for the Daju, referring to Kalge, their original supreme deity – even today, the Daju, who are mostly Muslim, sometimes call Allah “Kalge”
- Moluism for the Tora/Fur, centered around the worship of the sky god Molu, attested as late as the 19th century
- Idoism for the Zaghawas and other related non-Berber peoples of the central Sahara
- Muneism for the religion of the peoples around Lake Chad
Why Nubia?
I’ve advocated for the potential of Struggles ever since they were first introduced in Fate of Iberia, and I’ve used them before in RICE to tell the stories and complex histories of Greenland, Normandy, Sri Lanka, and Sicily in a way that’s, hopefully, interesting from both a narrative and gameplay POV.This update will be my first foray into the Situations system, which I hope to use like struggles to provide narrative immersion in history’s complexities. These days, it’s easy to project Sudan’s current state as a country suffering from war, poverty, and genocide into the past, as if it’s always been that way; it also doesn’t help that while Paradox has made great strides in better depicting Africa, there is much to be desired.
Yet in Sudan, diverse societies prospered over the centuries, with great achievements in trade, learning, architecture, politics, and more. It is my hope the content of this update will provide a taste of the vibrant history and culture of Sudan and the surrounding regions like Egypt.
Conclusion
That concludes this first dev diary for RICE’s upcoming Nubia flavor pack! Hopefully, this helped you understand the lay of the land of this update, and whet your appetite for more of Sudan’s history. There will be at least two more dev diaries touching on other aspects of this update, such as the Baqt situation, and other decisions, activities, and flavor for Nubia.Until then, see you next time!
Selected Sources for Further Reading
Due to the large number of sources I am using, I’ll provide a more complete, extensive list in the final dev diary. For now, I’ll list just a few 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
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