Music of Civ VI

[Jabulani]

Music in Civ Vi is the only aspect which deserves a standing ovation, I only listened to few pieces but they are awsome indeed , my best compliments !

 

[Suliot]

I love 'Lovely Joan' and 'Mayenzeit One Neidt'. All of the tracks are beautiful, but these two really stand out for me.

 

[Bad Wolf]

Yeah the music in this game is phenomenal. Hearing America's Atomic-era theme for the first time was just lovely.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

They really nailed all the music, especially the late game music which has in the past fallen short. Of course the title theme is phenomenal as well.

My biggest gripe is that I seem to have long stretches in the game when no music is playing at all.

 

[Guandao]

Here is Mr. Rizzo's reply to my question about the Aztec theme and also the wonders movie music:

(Thanks for the kind words. We do a lot of research before we start writing the music for a Civ game. There is no surviving Aztec music that I could find anywhere. But I did find some Aztec descendants who were playing music that was probably as close to what Aztec music would sound like, so I used that as the basis for the Aztec themes and music. The Ancient version is me playing a Native American flute. Since I don't play that well, it made it sound a little more rough and original. One of the other Ancient pieces is me playing a double tube Native American flute that lets you play harmony with yourself.

Yes, I did all of the Wonder music this time. Actually, all but the Pyramids. I wrote all of the Wonder pieces before most of the in-game music was finished. After Geoff delivered the Ancient Egypt music set, we both realized that the Pyramid piece was orchestrated in a different style. So Geoff did a version using the style, instrumentation and players of his Ancient Egypt set and it ties the two of them together nicely - even though in the game, any Civ can build the Pyramids.

I'm glad you're enjoying the game and the music.)

No specific name for the Aztec melody inspiration, but at least we know that it is a song by Aztec descendants (known today as the Nahua people). I will miss the City-State jingles though (which Rizzo composed for Civ5 and its expansions)

 

[Takfloyd]

They really nailed all the music, especially the late game music which has in the past fallen short. Of course the title theme is phenomenal as well.

My biggest gripe is that I seem to have long stretches in the game when no music is playing at all.

This is probably caused by memory issues. After playing for a long time on huge maps, some sounds and music stop playing for me as the game closes in on 4 gigabytes of ram usage. Reloading should fix it.

 

[Morningcalm]

Guandao, that's interesting! Thanks for sharing their email replies. Shame we won't find out the Aztec tune it's based on. Not sure why they couldn't just reuse Civ V's Aztec tune, but I guess variety is good since Epitaph got a repeat from V to VI.

Geoff Knorr recently put up for sale of Civ VI's orchestral scores for the industrial era. I noticed Arabia's theme is listed as Banat Iskandaria, which appears to be the secular version of the popular tune, not the Allah-glorying version we have thought it was based on (though the melody is the same, so not much of a difference there perhaps).

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

This is probably caused by memory issues. After playing for a long time on huge maps, some sounds and music stop playing for me as the game closes in on 4 gigabytes of ram usage. Reloading should fix it.

So that 16 GB of RAM I have is useless?

 

[Raider]

Now, imagine if they had taken the music budget and spent it on AI... But hey, that doesn't fit into the marketers' brain.

 

[xcrissxcrossx]

This thread is pretty old, but Just want to ad that Civ 6 probably has one of the best soundtracks of any game out there. Soundtrack is 10/10

 

[TruthfulCake]

The soundtrack is really great, but sometimes can be out of context. Declaring a war against Brazil shouldn't really play their very cheerful and glorious Atomic Era theme. When I launch 3 nuclear missiles on Rio and Brasilia I expect to hear something like Field of Poppies.

Some civilizations don't have this problem since their themes are serious enough for wartime, but Brazil is just jarring.

 

[Namaspamus]

I will miss the City-State jingles though (which Rizzo composed for Civ5 and its expansions)

Too, they were great.

 

[Takfloyd]

So that 16 GB of RAM I have is useless?

The game may be programmed to reduce memory usage at 4 GB. I'm not out of memory when it happens either.

 

[Morningcalm]

So are the various "improv" ambient tracks also by the composers, or was it licensed music?

 

[Roxlimn]

The music in the overland display cycles between the music of all the Civs you've met. It varies depending on the tech level of the Civs so if you're in Atomic Era, your music will be techno-rock, but if China is in the Industrial Era, by the time their music rolls around, it'll be orchestral. I've reduced Japan to one city, so every time their music rolls around, it's Medieval.

 

[Morningcalm]

Makes sense. I do wish they had more ambient music though; I am beginning to get tired of the music in-game, despite my view that Civ VI's music is overall better than Civ V's. A major problem is that each civ's central theme harmony is quite similar (even between eras) since the composers evidently felt duty-bound to include the same melody in (mostly) the same arrangement, even if it does have electronica/etc overlays--the central harmony remains almost exactly the same. It's a bit disappointing since I think Civ V had the harmonies change more (and not just between the peace and war versions, but within each tune itself, which didn't have the Civ VI habit of repeating the same crescendo multiple times within each track).

 

[Cabbagesavager]

The music in the overland display cycles between the music of all the Civs you've met. It varies depending on the tech level of the Civs so if you're in Atomic Era, your music will be techno-rock, but if China is in the Industrial Era, by the time their music rolls around, it'll be orchestral. I've reduced Japan to one city, so every time their music rolls around, it's Medieval.

I always kill Rome before they reach industrial as I prefer their Medieval era music. Sorry Trajan.

 

[God of Kings]

Behold!

 

[kul]

Man, hearing that they are using original composition for some civs really is heartbreaking. Understandable, but I still felt let down no less.

 

[Guandao]

Has anyone found the files for the Great Works of Music and Wonder movie music?