Music is culture-specific and era-specific in diplomacy.

[Boris Godunov]

I think this is awesome awesome awesome:

Music of the various cultures represented in the game can be heard at anytime by simply mousing over a town or having diplomatic encounters with the leaders of the nations. Each leader gets his own music and where possible, it is based upon a traditional tune associated with the culture or nation the leader represents. Of course in many cases, there simply is not a well-known tune to represent a culture, so we make it up.

Another important consideration is time period. We wanted the music for each leader to reflect how developed his culture is at the current time in the game. So, we created three different versions of each leader piece (early, middle, and late), to represent the selected culture’s current progress. The more advanced the culture (in science, industry, and the arts), the more developed the arrangements of the leader’s music.

I missed the Civ I culture-specific diplomacy music. That it is back and changes with eras is just terrific. YAY!

[Guynemer]

It is bells and whistles just like this that were so sorely underestimated in making Civilization what it was.

At this point, I'm just about 100% certain that Civ4 will be orders of magnitude more enjoyable than Civ3.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Also the fact that it changes and becomes more 'complex' as time passes is a great touch as well!

[asleepathewheel]

Nice. Maybe i won't have other music on in the background of this game.

[Rychro Anrise]

This is just increasing my suspected enjoyment of the game even more. The music of Civilization III never did anything for me and was always turned off, leaving a feeling of silence and unpleasantness that could only be somewhat quelled with playing my own music. But the myriad of music seems to be a great solution to the empty, cold feeling I had in Civilization III (Of course, I could just turn the music back on, but it'd get on my nerves or fade into the backround anyway.). Yet another aspect of the game to express joy over.

[Boris Godunov]

The good thing is that it looks like they got rid of the modern era Kenny G-esque light rock crap that was in Civ3.

[Ennet]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The good thing is that it looks like they got rid of the modern era Kenny G-esque light rock crap that was in Civ3.

I liked that so i hope not!

[Nikolai]

The music played on the official site sounds very good, much better than Civ3's. I haven't DL'ed the music pieces available there, but will do!

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ennet
I liked that so i hope not!

[Harovan]

I hated the nervous drumming in Civ3 in the Ancient age. I loved the medieval music. The industrial was so-so. The modern age music was plain awesome.

Guess it's in the eye of the beholder, or more precise, in the ear of the listener.

[Boris Godunov]

I don't see why anyone liked the modern-era music. It ruined what little epic feel the game had going. You can have modern orchestral music (think The Hunt For Red October soundtrack, which I used). But cheesy rock? Ugh.

That they're using real classical music scores now is great. Still, I will undoubtedly replace some of the in-game music files just to avoid repitition.

[Harovan]

Funny, I used The Hunt For Red October soundtrack also, although only in one game as the Russians, where I deliberately built a communistic world empire. And of course I had Teh Lenin as leaderhead.

[Nikolai]

Boris, the modern age music in Civ3 was very nice IMO. Actually it was among the best in the whole game. I thought I'd go nuts some times because of the Ancient age music for instance...

[Boris Godunov]

I replaced most of the music. Respighi is awesome in the ancient era (esp. if playing the Romans!). Mahler and Bruckner in the Industrial era. Movie soundtracks in the modern era.

The problem was there was only 3-4 music slots per era. Woefully inadequate.

I wonder if we'll have such limits in Civ4 if we opt to use different music?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Nikolai
Boris, the modern age music in Civ3 was very nice IMO. Actually it was among the best in the whole game. I thought I'd go nuts some times because of the Ancient age music for instance...

I didn't like any of the music for Civ3, with the possible exception of the medieval era. Even so, I believe I supplanted those with some of the medieval music from EUII. Now there was a game that got the atmospheric music perfect.