Hello everyone! Good morning and happy Monday! A new week! How are you today and how are things going? I hope everything is fine, as much as it can be. How is the weather? Yesterday was super hot, but so far today is going fine on the temperature side, at least in my bedroom... I've been doing this these days: I first write the post, the main theme of it, then I write this part of the composition, just saying hi and wishing you well, which is a very important part, too, I mean, I can't just rush to the subject withouth starting the conversation, can I? Sometimes, in some posts, this part gets discharged, unfortunately, but well, those aren't as common. I hope to go to the beach soon with grandma and my aunt, and may we have a good time there. I will write on the blog, but I'm afraid I'm really not sure if I will be able to stream, one step at a time, in the end... As I write this, the main body of the post is already made, and I talked about Civ IV's soundtrack, let's jump to my thoughts, shall we?
Civilization IV's soundtrack is both good for its time, not impressive by today's standards, and spectacular, it depends on where you are looking at, concerning the leader's music, it's the first case. Quite pleasant, familiar, carrying the formula of Civ III in it, which means each personality gets an ancient theme, a medieval theme, and so on, until the Industrial era and so on. It brings nostalgia in me, it's true, but I must recognize they pale in comparison to what was to come in Civ V and VI. That being said, the concept of having different arrangements for different eras was unfortunately put aside on Civ V. Civ VI has this idea coming back, but it's not quite the same thing, even if the music quality is far better in all of the dots. The Spectacular part comes with the ambience music, where it changes according to the era. We have gregorian chants for Medieval Era, Romantic music for the Industrial era, and lots of John Adams for Modern era. The songs selected for the reinassance era are magnificent but terribly incorrect, because Bach's themes weren't as popular in the 18th century, and well, you can't put 18th century songs in a period that starts in the 15th one! It's a bit of a mess, it's true, but I'm complaining on a very worth having problem, as this concept of changing songs overtime got put aside in Civ V. Not to say Civ V's soundtrack was bad, that's awfully incorrect, Civ V's soundtrack, both on leader/civilization case and ambience's case, is a masterpiece, it expands in classical music, and also add arabic songs for arabic civilizations, Oriental ones for Oriental Civilizations such as Japan, China and India, and Korea. It is very good and diverse, just a bit on the repetitive side, because it doesn't change over the eras. As Civ V is the most solid of the franchise, in my opinion, it suits it, but one can really miss the variety of Civ IV. Civ VI has little ambience music, the ones it does possess has a very echo-effect to it, causing it to be bland and boring, it brings back the concept of changing arrangements for the eras, but only on the leader's case, at a certain point the ambience music disappear, being replaced by the official soundtrack of this edition. It's one of the most frustrating things of Civ VI, it doesn't have the atmosphere of Civ IV or V, it does have an unified artstyle, like the other two previous titles, but it pales in comparison, and it looks childish/unfinished. They embraced the board-game aesthetics in this one, and it shows, which can be a shame, a very big one.
Civ IV also has music from the previous title of the franchise, the excellent Civ III, that has a very sympathetic soundtrack, the most sincere one, if you ask me, I think it is last to have ambience music made by the developers themselves (if you don't count Civilization Beyond Earth on this mix). That's awesome, specially because Civ IV improved and expanded on a lot of things present on Civ III. Civ V, the biggest revolution in the series, abandoned, music-wise, many of the ideas of Civ III and IV, which is sad, but the product of Civ V is such a beautiful success it's really hard to cry for too long. Civ VI isn't a dramatic improvement over Civ V, it's an extremely solid title on the Civ series, perhaps the most popular and successful, but for those who entered the Civ series in previous titles, it's hard not to consider Civ VI to be lacking in many aspects, soundtrack being one of them. But I won't cry for too long, as Civ VI is the most fun game in the series, being less harsh than Civ V in the right aspects, and being more sympathetic as well, though harder to learn, and definitely a departure from many elements that previously made Civ what it is. Anyway, I'm rambling for too long now, here's the soundtrack for Civ IV, if you'd like to check it out, also pay attention to the artstyle of it, it's unique! Thank you for being here, dear reader, listening to me expressing my take on Civ IV. Hope to see you again real soon, on a next post, that hopefully will come this week! Wish you the best! Love you!!!
Civ IV Soundtrack
Civ IV's loading screen epic
Civ IV leader themes
PS: Baba Yetu is grossly overrated, the best Civ theme belongs to Civilization V, and also Civ V's expansion: Gods & Kings. Civilization VI's sogno di volare is brilliant as well, all of those are, in my humble opinion, more enjoyable than Baba Yetu.
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