Ambiance/Background music sets

[Karatekid5]

Just a couple of quick questions regarding this part of the game's soundtrack.

Since each music set is shared between multiple civs, are there songs in each set that will play more often for some civs than they will for others? For example, will more of the Indian-style pieces in the Asian music set be played when playing as Gandhi as opposed to Oda or Sejong? Or is it completely random?
Though, I happen to hear this song quite a lot when playing as a Native American civ.

Also, even though we already have four music sets (Native American, European, Asian, and Middle Eastern), do you think that they'll add any new ones for new civs? (either in One World or any future DLC).

Just a little detail of the game that made me pretty curious. Has anyone else noticed anything interesting about the games BG/Ambiance music?

 

[Lira]

To my knowledge, the background music does change depending on the civilisation you're playing with. I never noticed that until I played with Korea and "Arirang" came out of my compy's speakers.

I wish we could change the background music though. I mean, I like the music, but I'd rather play to some drum'n'bass instead

 

[glider1]

Karatekid5, I've played many hours of this game and I think there are music tracks that never actually get played at all in game. There is some brilliant music in the Civ5 soundtrack, but I've had to extract it from the steam folder and manually play it. The track selection inbuilt into the game is somewhat broken I think. Too repetitive for the vast variety of the tracks that are actually present in the soundtrack.

Cheers

 

[ahawk]

I'm not 100% sure on this (I don't check game assets or XML or anything hardly ever), but from my experince of playing far, far too much CiV:

Within each set, not every theme or piece is shared. Many civs, immediately on turn 1, have a unique theme that is specific to them and that cycles along with the shared pool. Germany has a Beethoven piece to start with (part of Ode to Joy?), Spain has a very distinct theme when the game begins, Sweden has its own, and so forth. Some of these are only a minute or two long, and tend to get buried within the dozens of minutes of shared music within the set, but many civs have at least a minute or two of something unique to them.

I've never heard the Beethoven piece except as Germany. I've never heard the Spanish theme except as Spain. So there definitely is a correlation between the civ you chose and at least a small percentage of the music you will hear. Again, it may only be several minutes within dozens of minutes of other stuff, but there are some truly unique themes that aren't shared by others who utilize the same basic set (e.g.: Asian, Native American, etc.).

Conversely, especially concerning the vanilla civs, there are some musical choices that are just odd: France and Russia have either identical, or almost identical, war themes IIRC. Which isn't a huge problem (both count as European civs), but, given the geographical vastness of Russia (encompassing a good chunk of Asia, not just Europe), it just seems a little out-of-place. I mean, Russia is at the opposite end of Europe from France. That alone makes it a little jarring that the same music always cues when I am at war as either of them. Obviously, not every civ is going to fit well within the set it is assigned. Moreover, ancient civs that haven't existed for millenia present a unique challenge to just what their music would sound like (Babylon being the best example).

 

[pyroflare77]

All I know is that upon starting a game, the first thing you'll hear is your civ's peace or war theme, depending on if you're at war or not. Declaring war on another civ or them declaring war on you will trigger their war theme playing. After that ends (assuming there are no interruptions from other civs), your civ's war theme will play. I'm not so sure about the normal music that plays.

Ahawk, Russia and France's war themes both have choir, but are also quite different <_<

 

[Shadow717]

I believe every civ has at least 2 unique pieces, 1 war and 1 peace. I don't know how many songs are shared though, nor do I know if any civs have more than 2 unique songs. I remember off the top of my head that England has a lovely Holst piece, I vow to thee my country, which is based off of one of his planet suites. (juipiter I think). They really did a very nice job with the music in this game, it's a shame it is so easy to miss.

 

[Uberfrog]

Each civ has exactly two unique theme songs, and when you first load a game or reload a save, your civ's peace/war theme will play as appropriate.

The appropriate civ's theme will play when talking to a particular leader, but will stop again when you leave the conversation. The exception to this is if you declare war: when you declare/are declared upon, your enemy's war theme will play to completion, followed by your own war theme.

At all other times, music plays from the war/peace/mixed collection for your civ's region: Europe/Middle East/Asian/Native American.