What's your favorite background music?

[jnebbe]

Was thinking about how I strongly dislike playing medieval and renaissance era and I think me hating the music is a big part. I probably like modern era the most and the modern music slaps

My favorite is Harmonielehre: Meister Eckhardt and Quackie

 

[krikav]

Wow, completely different to how I see it.


I absolutely love the medieval music. Especially the chants.
Nothing beats just flying slowly over the empire micromanaging stuff to that relaxing soothing music.
I also love shipping drafted rifles to the tunes of Mozart/Bach/Bethooven.

Some of the later music is nice, but some of it just makes me turn the music off untill I start a new game.

 

[lymond]

My thoughts almost exactly, krikav, cept I don’t like modern at all. All just cacophonous noise to me. Medieval and Ren have some really beautiful pieces.

 

[Windsor]

My least favorite is the ancient/classical era. Medieval/Ren/Industrial is great. I got mixed feelings about the modern era. I get lymonds description of "cacophonous noise", but I also feel that's kinda what you want near the end of the game when everything (should be, but rarely are) is about to be decided. The modern music creates a sense of urgency that I like.

The problem is that instead of being a dramatic ending, the modern era tends to be a laggish hell where the game is already decided with lots of End-Turn clicking and no interesting decisions left. And then the modern music is just annoying just like all the sound effects in the modern era that you have to suffer through to reach the victory screen. Graphics(read: ugly roads!) looks terrible too.

Which game falls off harder, Half-Life or Civ?

 

[Zaddy]

The Ancient and Classical eras have great music. Medieval usually gets turned off. Renaissance and Industrial are okay but not my favorite. I love the modern music enough to explore the broader genre and listen to it outside of the game and I think it's a perfect fit.

 

[Trigan Emperor]

A couple of favourites:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Serenade No. 10 in B-flat Major, K. 361 - "Gran Partita": III. Adagio

Antonín Dvořák - Slavonic Dances, Op. 72, B 145: No. 4 (12) in D Flat Major

 

[ArchGhost]

Not familiar enough to name pieces, but mostly just the ancient era stuff. Specifically the one with the heavy xylophone (or maybe a slit drum, it sounds like...something wooden and resonant), thunder, and no vocals. Yes I am biased because I play percussion myself:

And I dig the Civ3 music thrown in there somewhere, though I never even played Civ 3, ha. I tend to turn off the music by Renaissance if I play with it on at all, usually have my own stuff going on on the ipod. I also listen to a lot of stuff like Futurama and various Adult Swim shows while playing for extended periods.

When it starts getting into the classical pieces it starts to break my concentration (it doesn't fit the pace of the game whatsoever, and just drones on regardless) and at some point after that (Industrial? Modern? Future? dunno) the BGM just starts sounding like a wall of indiscriminate noises to me.

 

[Jellybug]

Does Civ IV have the Pastoral Symphony by Beethoven(the sixth) or is that III? Cuz that's my fav

 

[Lennier]

The sixth. A quote from the third was in Civ II.

 

[Fippy]

Baba Yetu ofc, cos i did put it into every era

 

[Fish Man]

Baba Yetu ofc, cos i did put it into every era

I actually like Al Nadda (Warlords menu theme) better than Baba Yetu. It's so powerful and warlike and yet it's a love song, giving it its own unique charm.

 

[Henrik75]

love it when this song comes up as preparing a construction rush

or this one when im marching a massive stack of cannons/cavalry into someone

 

[Lemon Merchant]

My favorite background music is Metallica.

(Yes, I'm evil and shut off the game music. I play alternate background selections with WinAmp.)

 

[Bandoneón]

The only music I hate in this game is the industrial to modern music, and not because it's bad, but because there is a copyright claimant on most of them, so any poor soul who forgot to turn it off and uploaded a video of their gameplay during those eras will have their video permanently blocked on Youtube. I was just watching this great game by @AbsoluteZero as Genghis, and right at the most interesting part of the game where he turns everything around, oops sorry, some gigantic corporation wanted to make 34 cents off the video so you can't watch it any more. (

)

 

[SittinDown]

Breakdown by era:

• Classical - 4 tracks, ~40 minutes
  
• Medieval - 20 tracks, ~90 minutes
  
• Renaissance - 19 tracks, ~90 minutes - 3 composers, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart
  
• Industrial - 16 tracks, ~90 minutes - 5 composers, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Rimsky, Saint Saens
• Modern - 14 tracks, 120 minutes, Composers not listed on track names. [Are these original songs for the game?]

Quick summary:

• Renaissance tracks span - 1720's - 1820's music. Which is pretty late Renaissance.
  
• Industrial tracks span - 1800 - 1908 music. Which seems reasonable.

I got curious about the Renaissance / Industrial tracks by composer:

• Bach - 1685 - 1750
  • Mostly picked out his orchestral stuff from later on - 1720's / 1730's.
• Mozart - 1756 - 1791
  • Probably more towards 1770's / 1780's stuff here, but I didn't look it up.
• Beethoven - 1770 - 1827 - In both eras (before this are renaissance only, ones after are Industrial only)
  • A cross-over composer between Classical and Romanic periods. And I think they put the classical stuff in renaissance, and Romantic in Industrial, which makes sense, since Romantic period started around the same time as the industrial revolution kicked off (early 1800's).
  • The Beethoven pieces between Industrial and Renaissance aren't really that distinguishable, which may have been on purpose to sort of blend the ears and make it sound more gradual.
• Brahms - 1833 - 1897
  • These tracks are pretty standard Romantic, and have a calm straightforward though modern musical feel.
  • These sort of have that noble militaristic pre-WWI optimism feel to them.
• Dvorak - 1841 - 1904
  • The Dvorak tracks in Industrial have a VERY different and more modern feel to the Beethoven ones in the same era. Which makes sense, because they were written 50-100 years later, in what was a very transformative century. These are the first tracks in the game that start to sound cacophonous and anxious to my ear.
• Rimsky - 1844 - 1908
  • Only has 1 track. Sort of between Dvorak and Brahms. Kind of a melancholy but beautiful feel.
  Saint Saens - 1835 - 1921
  • One track

 

[drewisfat]

My favorite background music is Metallica.

(Yes, I'm evil and shut off the game music. I play alternate background selections with WinAmp.)

In the ancient era start off with folk/black metal.
In classical/renaissance switch to symphonic metal.
In the industrial era it's time for industrial. Duh.
In the modern era gotta go to prog or post-metal
And if at any point things get dire, it's straight death metal until the situation is resolved.

 

[Pangaea]

My favorite background music is Metallica.

(Yes, I'm evil and shut off the game music. I play alternate background selections with WinAmp.)

Same here. I can't handle the Civ4 music any more, there are too many tracks I find annoying (heard them too many times I suppose). Much prefer to have the music and most of the sound effects off, and then listen to my own music in VLC. It's usually AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Airbourne, Guns N Roses, Dire Straits or Johnny Cash. At other times, especially when playing during the night, I like to put on some youtube video on repeat, like some type of ASMR video (calm and relaxing).

 

[lymond]

ASMR! Now why did I not think of using that before as background. "Die Shaka!"..."I'm coming for you with my massive Cur army, you bahstahd!" ..er...um...ugh...(drool).....

 

[Pangaea]

Remember soft padding around the keyboard. Just in case

 

[King Younk]

“Hey Civ4, Imma let you finish, but Civ3 is the greatest video-game music of all time!” - Kanye West