How do i change the music in this game??

Im looking to have catherines music play when i play as gandhi. Or if i understand how the music is categorized correctly i want europes themes for the african civs. How do i do this?

Any slight change i make to the XML files in "Assets\Sounds\XML" seems to completely disable all sound.

Perhaps Technical Support could help you better?

Let us know if you figure out how to do this. This is slightly unrelated, but I noticed that you can talk to another Civ and sometimes their music will continue playing after ending discussions. It's kinda nice, especially if you are tired of one of the blander tracks currently playing. I haven't figured out what conditions prevents this from happening, but it only works some of the times.

I thought i was getting deja vu asking this...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12751049#post12751049

I asked this same question just over a year ago Bumped my old topic. <SoundtrackTag> seems to be the key to this but i could never make it work, still cant. If anyone else figures it out or knows where im going wrong do tell!

1. The only way to get different music working is by editing core files as modding does not permit new sounds to exist yet (it's being worked on as far as I know).

This actually isn't that hard to do. Want to play as Korea, but listen to Europe's soundtrack music? Simple. Want to play as Poland, but hear Asian peace music and Mesoamerican war music? Simple. You can also make it so that you're listening to the various Leader music throughout the game, which is how I played my last game (and it was really fun getting to hear all the different leader tunes), but that's several degrees more complicated than switching between soundtracks. I'll only talk about the latter here.

Note -- be sure to make backup copies of any and all files you modify.

1. First, navigate to the appropriate XML folder for the civilization you're playing. On my machine (Windows 7 64-bit, using a Steam download), the pathway is: My Computer --> Program Files (x86) --> Steam --> steamapps --> common --> sid meier's civilization V --> assets --> sounds --> XML. (If the civ in question is from one of the expansions or DLC packs, the path is ... assets --> DLC --> Expansion [or Expansion2, or DLC_01, etc.] --> sounds --> XML.)

2. Open the Audio2DScripts.xml file for the civ you're playing. For instance, if you're playing the Aztecs, you'd open AztecAudio2DScripts.xml.

3. You will see two main sections, AZTEC Peace Music and AZTEC War Music. (Continuing the Aztec example.) The sections are populated by <Script2DSound> entries, with one entry for each song played in the soundtrack. For the Aztecs, you will see that there are 47 songs in the Peace section and 47 songs in the War section. What you want to do is change the <SoundID> information for each song so that it matches the geographic region of the soundtrack you wish to listen to.

For instance, you'll see (for the Aztecs) that "SONG_AZTEC_PEACE_1" is tied to the SoundID "SND_AMERICAREGIONS_PEACE_1". All you need to do is change this, so that the song is tied to the "PEACE_1" song from, say, the Europe region. You don't need to copy any music files, move anything around, anything like that; you simply need to rename these SoundID references.

So. Let's say you want to listen to the Europe soundtrack while playing as the Aztecs. Just go down each of the Peace songs and change "SND_AMERICAREGIONS_PEACE_X" to "SND_EUROPE_PEACE_X", where X equals the song number. Then do the same for the War songs: change "SND_AMERICAREGIONS_WAR_X" to "SND_EUROPE_WAR_X". Also do the same for the "EITHER" tracks. Simple, you're finished.

Or, let's say you want to listen to the Europe peacetime soundtrack and the Asia wartime soundtrack. Same idea: change the peacetime SoundIDs to "EUROPE" and the wartime SoundIDs to "ASIA".

It is possible that you will end up with more SoundIDs than there are actual songs in the (new) soundtrack. The AmericaRegions playlist features 24 Peace songs, 24 War songs, and 23 "Either" songs, but maybe the Europe soundtrack has only 22, 21, and 23. (Just a random guess -- I don't have the numbers off the top of my head.) This is not a problem. If the program attempts to call a dummy track, it will simply move on to the next randomly generated song, and nothing bad will occur.

It's possible to use this method to listen to all the soundtracks while playing as one civ. This requires a bit more work, but it's the same principle. Continuing the Aztec example, you'd leave the current lists of Script2DSounds alone, since they will give you the America tracks, and simply add new entries to the end of the lists, via copying and pasting old entries. Just increment the song number by 1 each time and replace AMERICAREGIONS with each of the geographic areas in turn: SoundIDs 1-47 would use the original AMERICAREGIONS (so no changes there), then 48-95 would use EUROPE, etc. Remember to do this for both the Peace and War sections. Again, I'm not sure offhand how many songs each soundtrack contains, but it's easy to find out by peeking into other civs' .xml files.

That's all there is to it. It's a little tedious, doing all the copying and pasting and number incrementing for each of the SoundIDs, and of course you have to do it all over again for each civ you play (if you want the same effect), but it's not hard or tricky or anything. Again, be sure you have backed up the original .xml file(s) before doing this.

By the way, the four different geographic regions are named as follows:
AmericaRegions
Europe
MiddleEastAfrica
Asia

EDIT -- added a missing folder in the pathway for expansion/DLC civs.

Damn, this sounds great! I love zulu music but it's the last civilization I would like to play. Gotta use this. Thanks.

I'm playing BNW and I can't find '(If the civ in question is from one of the expansions or DLC packs, the path is ... assets --> Expansion [or Expansion2, or DLC_01, etc.] --> sounds --> XML.)'
I get to 'assets' but I can't find 'expansion'. I see 'DLC'.
I'm playing as Celts.

GMO said:

I'm playing BNW and I can't find '(If the civ in question is from one of the expansions or DLC packs, the path is ... assets --> Expansion [or Expansion2, or DLC_01, etc.] --> sounds --> XML.)'
I get to 'assets' but I can't find 'expansion'. I see 'DLC'.
I'm playing as Celts.

Click to expand...

Ah, apologies, I omitted a folder there. It should be ... assets --> DLC --> Expansion [or Expansion2, or DLC_01, etc.] --> sounds --> XML. So for the Celts, go into the DLC folder, then Expansion (which contains the G&K civs), then Sounds, then XML, and find CeltsAudio2DScripts.xml.

Sorry about that! I'll fix it in the original post.

Makavcio said:

Damn, this sounds great! I love zulu music but it's the last civilization I would like to play. Gotta use this. Thanks.

Click to expand...

Just to make sure everything is clear, there is no special "Zulu soundtrack". The Zulu use the MiddleEastAfrica soundtrack, so if you've played any of the other civs from this area--Egypt, Arabia, Morocco, etc.--then you've already heard the music that someone playing the Zulu hears. This process allows you to switch between the soundtracks of the 4 geographical areas; it doesn't involve the music unique to each leader (e.g., the "Ohhhh Shaka!" track). Working with the leader music is a much trickier process; it can be done, allowing games to be played while listening to all the leader music, but it's complicated. I can run through that process too, if people want, but be prepared for headaches.

It's much easier to just install a music player that plays .ogg files (such as foobar2000) and load the files from the installation folder into that. Turn off the music in Civ, and listen to a specific region, the leader music, scenario music, whatever you want, without losing sound effects from the game.

ToothedBomb said:

It's much easier to just install a music player that plays .ogg files (such as foobar2000) and load the files from the installation folder into that. Turn off the music in Civ, and listen to a specific region, the leader music, scenario music, whatever you want, without losing sound effects from the game.

Click to expand...

Yup, for sure. For me though, and for a few others I've talked to, there's something "special" about having the music channeled by the game, following the game's script and cues and whatnot. I dunno what it is exactly; it feels more...real, more organic, or something. More appropriate.

Similarly, I find it very off-putting to listen to non-game music, regardless of the game I'm playing. Even rinky-dink MIDI music from older games. That's a bigger departure than listening to the same music via an external player, of course, but I think the same bizarre sense of "fidelity" to the game's script is at play. Meh, I know my mileage varies considerably from most others'.

Lochlann said:

Yup, for sure. For me though, and for a few others I've talked to, there's something "special" about having the music channeled by the game, following the game's script and cues and whatnot. I dunno what it is exactly; it feels more...real, more organic, or something. More appropriate.

Similarly, I find it very off-putting to listen to non-game music, regardless of the game I'm playing. Even rinky-dink MIDI music from older games. That's a bigger departure than listening to the same music via an external player, of course, but I think the same bizarre sense of "fidelity" to the game's script is at play. Meh, I know my mileage varies considerably from most others'.

Click to expand...

I like how it changes based on whats happening in the game, peace/war etc, so few games so this nowadays, it used to be an occasional RTS feature now its seldom seen... or heard in this case.

Listening to my music collection whilst playing civ wouldnt fit, lady gaga - poker face is not appropriate invasion music

Lochlann said:

Yup, for sure. For me though, and for a few others I've talked to, there's something "special" about having the music channeled by the game, following the game's script and cues and whatnot. I dunno what it is exactly; it feels more...real, more organic, or something. More appropriate.

Click to expand...

I agree. I always have the music selected by the game, but for the others in this thread it's easier to load the files in a music player, since they don't really seem to care about region, war/peace.