What music do you want for Civ7 ?

[Naokaukodem]

Among the entire series, I recall only two titles that flavored my ears. First one is the obsessive war theme of Civ2 : weither I could find it annoying at times during playing (I never heard the other OST, because I had a ripped version, and even now under Windows 7 with the proper .ISO and install informations, I can't seem to be able to hear them), nowadays I often sing or beat it when I think about Civ.

The second title was this one from Civ3 :

It's intitled "Greco-Roman" but I really felt a vibe of (primitive ?) Africa into it. I was seized by it during a Zulu game, I was moving my Impies from city to city and that really sounded like smooth cotton with me preparing my war in secret. (solo) (or was it a hunt ? ) I could never forget that.

And a little third from Civ2, at the very beginning of the game, when we see the Earth form, IIRC. It is in Civ3 too, unless it was only in Civ3, but I happen to hum it from time to time. This was like this :

https://soundcloud.com/pink_ski_mask%2Fcivilization-iii-music-3

More generally I dislike pretty much every song of Civ6, from the awful menu and loadings grandiloquant air to the folkloric and often anachronistic songs of basically every civ (with some exceptions, thing is we often hear the awful music of the neighbour if I'm right)

Don't get me wrong, Civ3 had its awful musics too, especially the modern ones. But at least, they were original (for the most part, classical musics as an awful exception too)

Oh, and the Classical Roman scenario music of Civ3 Conquest, it was good stuff too, awesome !

I would like the writters of the musics to rack their brain a little bit to give us original stuff, not some fat motherish awful song as we can hear in Civ6.

Civ6 : worst OST ever, the example to NOT follow !

 

[Quintillus]

I'm on team John Adams for modern (the modern music composer for Civ IV). Or Philip Glass. Or someone else with a similar style.

Actually, Civ4 in general has my favorite soundtrack of any Civ game. Sure, it could be a bit wider in breadth, if you are playing China, it would be nice to have Chinese music rather than European music for most of the soundtrack. But by and large, Civ4 did a good job of having a soundtrack that added to the game while not distracting from it.

Most of Civ3's soundtrack also fit that bill, I agree with Civ3 modern being a glaring exception. But as good as Civ3's soundtrack is, on the whole I like Civ4's "draw from the historical corpus" approach better.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Thx for the answer Quintillus ! Nice to have another bell ring. (and nice to not have taken the poll with too much resentment )

It's something that you talk about Civ4 music because I have no memories of it. I suppose that it means, at least, that it was not annoying and blent well in the game. IIRC this is the time where I started to disable music from Civ series, because I was mainly playing multiplayer (I even got called "good" by some players) and eventhough Baba Yetu was incredible it could became a little annoying during all the time spent in lobbies. As to single player, I have to say I don't even remember at what difficulty level I beat it, I had problems with expansion (new cities costing gold and no pointer of that anywhere) and conquering (like conquering one single enemy city late was surrounding it with other culture, so that you couldn't even work a single tile except if you razed 3,4 more cities around it, which was a pain, to me at least. - that's why I suggested to keep the cities territory on conquest, and it's so good, well, "greener" I would say to just compare) and I guess that's why I was not very good in higher difficulty levels and that, you talk about modern, but I have a feeling I rarely went there. I re-installed the game recently, I will take care to the music and try to reach modern !

Thx for your refreshing input !

 

[Naokaukodem]

But by and large, Civ4 did a good job of having a soundtrack that added to the game while not distracting from it.

Yes ! I played some Regent or just below game lately (didn't finish because too many techs till the end), and the music didn't aggress me nor annoy me. I even felt it a little too discreet.

But as good as Civ3's soundtrack is, on the whole I like Civ4's "draw from the historical corpus" approach better.

Oh, I quite dislike the medieval music though : "draw from the historical corpus" is not only eurocentric, but it has its lack of inspiration too, as I guess some musics was retaken from existing ones. (I think I remind earing the original of one of the Civ4 musics elsewhere)
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I have to say that Civ4 gameplay is quite engaging, even with the vanilla version (the one I'm trying to master for now). For that reason, music becomes nearly secondary, and I think it's a good thing that they are quite discreet or neutral. I think that the sound effects are much more prevalent in this iteration, and I think it was a deliberate choice as peer to mark stronglier the different events. (wars, religions, great people, etc.)

It's a little bit the same reciepe with Civ5, except that some sounds were omnipresent and very unpleasant, musics starting to be folkloric and overall a failed attempt IMO.

Civ6 is the pinacle, as far as it goes with music, of the awfulness of Civ5, a little bit started with Civ4 (medieval), and now fully engaged. I strongly hope the devs will go away with this, and catch more of Civ3 spirit, let alone Civ4' at the worst of the cases.

 

[AffineConstant]

Just Christopher Tin all the way please, or really just something different from VI. The "generative" music idea was neat in theory, but I've never actually heard it done well in practice.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

I’d rather stick to the Civ VI themes. While Civ 2 and 3 sound good, it’s the individual civs that show the musical brilliance in the game (examples: Scarborough Fair, Mo Li Hua, Hungary’s theme, Kalinka, Hard Times Come Again No More)

 

[GeneralZIft]

Skip Civ 6 style for the next game please - it's so jarring to hear the same song 100x over but with different age filters on it.

Different age filters on music is cool, for example, they could take the Civ 5 style music and make duplicates of certain songs to play early and late.

But please don't do this: Google search "most famous song for Civilization", copy paste, edit it for Ancient (remove everything), edit it for Future (add epic tech noises)

 

[Ordnael]

I hate late game music filters! Does any civilization now plays their most iconic pieces of music with fanfare synthesisers? Traditional folk music is enough, I love ancient to renaissance music that plays on CIV VI.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

I hate late game music filters! Does any civilization now plays their most iconic pieces of music with fanfare synthesisers? Traditional folk music is enough, I love ancient to renaissance music that plays on CIV VI.

I mean its cool sometimes.

 

[reddishrecue]

I enjoyed civ 4 Medieval, Renaissance and classical music's. I also enjoyed civ 5 music from all Continents. Civ 6 had good music too like different civilizations did. Civilization 1 also had pretty good music. Civilization 2 hardly had music to enjoy and I missed out on Civilization 3. However, most civilizations have good study music to get some studying done while listening to it in YouTube.

 

[Ordnael]

I mean its cool sometimes.

The ambience music yes, the fanfare can be nauseating. If the game would alternate all filters of the songs in late game and not only play the synth version it would be a lot more tolerable!

 

[fiddlesticks]

My favourite is the Holst adaptation of Jupiter for England in Civ 5.

 

[GeneralZIft]

Civ 5 music feels very very authentic to the location which is what makes it so good. But Civ 6 music feels really... gameified, although I don't know if that's due to the game itself...

I'm not sure how to explain it but it sounds repetitive.

 

[reddishrecue]

Civ 5 music feels very very authentic to the location which is what makes it so good. But Civ 6 music feels really... gameified, although I don't know if that's due to the game itself...

I'm not sure how to explain it but it sounds repetitive.

It does, particularly with smaller amounts of civilizations. You'll be hearing their same themes throughout the whole game.

 

[Quintillus]

Having played more VI than I had when I first replied to this thread, I must agree with those who aren't a fan of its soundtrack. It's the first Civ game where I've muted the music by default. Yeah, after hundred of hours of playing Civ III I'd occasionally play some other music instead, but other than the Modern Era, it took many games to get to that point. In Civ VI, it took less than one full playthrough.

Why? Primarily the repetitiveness. I felt like the same song was on repeat, and... I kind of was.

I remember reading Soren (Civ IV's lead designer) say that he was surprised in a good way that Firaxis approved the music budget required for Civ IV, as it was not insignificant. But they got it right. They had good recordings, and enough variety that it took a little while before you heard the same piece again, even though the pieces were unique across the five eras.