Wrong Era Music

[coriander]

I noticed that the game's music files are organized all wrong. When you start a new game there's no background music. Why? Because the "ancient" sound tracks are incorrectly stored in the Classical folder. So you get no music in the ancient era, and ancient music in the classical era. Has anyone figured out the correct folders for the music files?

[Kassiopeia]

Actually, as far as I know, you aren't supposed to get music until the Classical era, and that the files are rather mislabeled? There are no music files anywhere that would belong to the Classical era, you see - at least any that I know of. So either the Ancient or the Classical era is without music, and I think it would make sense to have the first era have only ambient sounds (since the best you can tribe could get is a few sticks banging on a rock), rather than the second era.

Of course, maybe they did have a Classical era soundtrack, but it got lost on the way.

[Nikolai]

Good catch! I wondered on why it was so myself, but decided it was intended to be like that. After all there are sounds, but not music. Thought of it as some way to portrait the "innocent" days of man.

[coriander]

I really doubt that this was by design. It appears that the classical music files were left out or stored in the wrong place. The music files in the Classical folder are labeled "ancient" and don't sound anything like classical music. They sound primitive, like what you'd expect for the ancient age.

[hexagonian]

I've heard that the missing music is intentional - you need a particular tech to start the music playing.

So far, that has been the only decision by Firaxis that I seriously question...

but since I make my own playlists when gaming, it's a non-issue for me.

[coriander]

I've read posts from people who were merely speculating that having no music in the Ancient era was a feature rather a bug, but they were just guessing. I haven't seen anything written about that from anyone at Firaxis.

I don't think the music is triggered by the discovery of a particular tech. For me the music always starts with the pop-up announcing the Classical period.

For a game with such great music, it doesn't seem reasonable that the developers would intentionally have you start the game with silence (other than ambient sounds) or that primitive-sounding music files labeled "ancient" would belong in the Classical folder. So I'm asking if anyone has figured out how to make the sound tracks work right. I'd rather fix the problem than rely on a custom play list to work around it.

[Kassiopeia]

The thing here is that if you take out the AncientSoundtrackX.mp3 files from the Classical folder and replace them with something else, the game in the Classical era will display an error message that the AncientSoundtrack files could not be found and will go on without music. A message like this does not display when you start the game in the Ancient era. This leads me to believe that the current setup, for whatever reason, is definitely by choice, and has been programmed in. It's a developer choice, not an accidental omission of a folder.

This means that AncientSoundtrackX files are coded to start playing only in the Classical era, and there is no folder for Ancient era music. My guess is that they probably ran out of time and couldn't get the Classical soundtrack in in time.

[coriander]

Ah! That's something I didn't realize. Thanks. I agree with you that this use of the ancient music for the classical era looks intentional, probably because they ran out of time, which is ... disappointing.

I poked around in the game config files and found where this behavior is controlled. In the Assets\XML\GameInfo folder, the CIV4EraInfos.xml file lays out the music for each era. There is no music for ERA_ANCIENT. ERA_CLASSICAL uses the AS2D_ANCIENT_SOUNDTRACK_x music files (where x is 1, 2, 3, or 4), which are specified in the Assets\XML\Audio folder in AudioDefines.xml, which uses the path Sounds/Soundtrack/Classical/AncientSoundtrackx.

So the the way the config files are set up, the start of the music is triggered only by the onset of the Classical period.

For now (after making a copy of the original file) I've modified the CIV4EraInfos.xml file so that the "Classical" music plays for that period too, which isn't ideal but I like the ancient/classical tunes, and hearing them for both periods is much better for me than silence.

If anyone is interested, to do this just find ERA_ANCIENT in CIV4EraInfos.xml (it's at the top of the file) and (after making a backup copy) replace the lines for iSoundtrackSpace and EraInfoSoundtracks with a copy of those lines for ERA_CLASSICAL.

[BigJMoney]

Here's another conspiracy theory for you guys: maybe they didn't know that the game was going to have both an "ancient" and and a classical era. Maybe at first it was just ancient, so they named the music after it. Later, they broke it up into Ancient and Classical, and just shifted the music over to Classical (without renaming it) because they figured it would be better for music to start later, rather than abruptly end.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[Node]

Can we conclude that there is no "classical" era music?

It seems to have ancient, and skips straight to Medieval. Medieval, oddly, has works from Palestrina who is a very well known renaissance composer.

When you look in the renaissance folder, while it may be pleasing to the ears, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven weren't really renaissance artists. They are best described as during the age of nationhood, or if you want to apply it to the game, the industrial age. Dvorak is an awesome choice for the industrial age, conversely.

Something is very odd about the music organization in this game.

edit: Can I make a request? Do any experts on music know what music may represent the classical/antiquity age? Could you point me to where I can get some? Since we didn't have standardized musical scores during ancient and classic times, we can just pretend. I thought one of the (few) things Rome:Total War did right as it's music. It felt right. The Rome music from the rise of rome conquest in Civ3 was pretty good too.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Node
Can I make a request? Do any experts on music know what music may represent the classical/antiquity age? Could you point me to where I can get some? Since we didn't have standardized musical scores during ancient and classic times, we can just pretend. I thought one of the (few) things Rome:Total War did right as it's music. It felt right. The Rome music from the rise of rome conquest in Civ3 was pretty good too.

The BBC had a recording of music from all over Africa, including some played on a trumpet taken from the tomb of Tutankhamun:

http://www.npr.org/programs/pt/features/2003/jun/trumpet.html

The Harmonia Mundi label also has a recording of music based on Ancient Greek forms:

http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/cds/k617069.htm

and Byzantine choral works:

http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/beginlst/chant.htm

as well as Mozarabic music from Moorish Iberia.

The Archiv label has music for an Anglo-Saxon Easter Mass:

http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1267

Other labels such as Nonesuch and Folkways have recordings of music by indigenous peoples from all around the world, which you might deem suitable for an 'ancient' rather than 'classical' setting:

http://libweb.uoregon.edu/music/Discographies/worlddisco/worldiscoaf.html

Alternatively, a good compilation of ambient music or works by individual composers such as Brian Eno or Jon Hassell or groups such as Can might appeal for the pre-classical civilization era- I can recommend Eno's 'Ambient 4: On Land' or Hassell and Eno's 'Fourth Worlds Vol. 1: Possible Musics' .


A good piece for a classical era civilization is also the opening trumpet music from Monteverdi's 'Orfeo'- it somehow just sounds right.