Music

[Cid]

Anyone know how to get rid of the battle music, i.e. the music played just as the armies engage? I deleted all "Battle wav" files in the Sounds/Music folder but it still plays when archers begin firing, Cav charges, etc. I want to keep the rest but these files are just too redundant and take away from the atmosphere (IMHO).

Kind of nit-picky but...

[Kekvit Irae]

Have you renamed/deleted the Mobilize musics?

EDIT: Tension too

[Weebeast]

I'm actually liking the option to have our own playist. Well, people are different.

Speaking of atmosphere, it'd be nice if I could give each faction its own horn.

[Cid]

Actually I want to keep the Mobilize/Tension music and all the rest, so no. I just deleted the Battle music (both European and Arab). Still plays though.

I've thought it would be nice if there was faction specific music too, e.g. Rodrigo if playing as Spanish, but have no idea how to do it.

[Weebeast]

Actually I want to keep the Mobilize/Tension music and all the rest, so no. I just deleted the Battle music (both European and Arab). Still plays though.

You should try to terminate the entry for battle tracks in the playlist file. It might be that. All the tension/mobilize tracks keep recycling probably somehow. I'm suprised it's not crashing when the file is missing. Why can't it be like that in other areas lol?

Read the third post to know how to mess with playlist (and giving Spanish its own music too).
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=31896

[Iustinus]

I'm pretty sure there is a guide to making faction specific music, but I will write about it now, as I have much experience with this.

Open up playlist, located in front of the Medieval- Total War folder, by using notepad. You will notice that there are six different 'slots,' or groupings of music. We are only allowed to create six kinds of music. The game already uses three of them. With playlist open, open up the Sounds/Music folder and look at the tracks there. They are labeled exactly like the original songs in the playlist. Here is a description of the different kinds of tracks and what they are used for:

1.) Slots and the Tracks with them

1. Tension (for the opening of a battle):

Euro Tension tracks are used in landscapes that have Western Euro buildings, Dark Age buildings, Eastern Euro buildings, and Southern Euro buildings.

Arab Tension tracks are used in landscapes with Middle Eastern buildings only.

Viking Tension tracks offer an alternative to Euro Tension tracks.

Otherwise, you can not create your own tension tracks. So you are limited with three kinds of tension music. However, there is a way to go around this, which I will explain later.

2. Mobilize (when you order a unit to move in battle for the first time)
Unlike Tension tracks, you can create and name your own mobilize tracks (they are not restricted to being named Arab, Euro, or Viking.)

3. Battle (plays when units begin fighting or shooting, but not when artillery first fires at walls)
Like Mobilize tracks, this is not restricted to the three original game names- Arab, Euro, and Viking.

4. Win (plays when you win)
This can be named whatever you want.

5. Lose (like above, but when you lose a battle)
Also can be named whatever you want.

6. Campaign Music
We are limited with only having two kinds of Campaign music. There are four songs, labeled for the four seasons, that alternate with each year in campaign. Those labeled Arab are used by factions that use musical tracks labeled with 'Arab,' and those named Euro with all other factions. Thus if you give a Pagan faction 'arab' music they will have 'arab' campaign music. It is unfortunate that we can not make separate campaign music for other factions (for example, the Byzantines and other Orthodox factions, or the Viking campaign.)

2.)
How the Playlist works:
Here is an example of my playlist for a mod I am working on, compared to the original. I apologize for the length. Anything that follows this // symbol is not read by the game. So you can write whatever you want behind the two lines.

Original Playlist:
// BGMP_INIT
// muslim
"Arab Tension 1", 0,
"Arab Tension 2", 0,
"Arab Tension 3", 0,
"", 0
// christian
"Euro Tension 1", 0,
"Euro Tension 2", 0,
"Euro Tension 3", 0,
"", 0
// Viking
"Viking Tension", 0,
"Viking Tension", 0,
"Euro Tension 1", 0,
"Euro Tension 2", 0,
"Euro Tension 3", 0,
"", 0
// custom 1,2 and 3
"", 0
"", 0
"", 0

// BGMP_MOVING
// muslim
"Arab Mobilize 1", 0,
"Arab Mobilize 2", 0,
"Arab Mobilize 3", 0,
"", 0
// christian
"Euro Mobilize 1", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 2", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 3", 0,
"", 0
// Viking
"Viking Mobilize 1", 0,
"Viking Mobilize 1", 0,
"Viking Mobilize 1", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 1", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 2", 0,
"", 0
// custom 1,2 and 3
"", 0
"", 0
"", 0

// BGMP_FIGHTING
// muslim
"Arab Battle 1", 0,
"Arab Battle 2", 0,
"Arab Battle 3", 0,
"", 0
// christian
"Euro Battle 1", 0,
"Euro Battle 2", 0,
"Euro Battle 3", 0,
"", 0
// Viking
"Viking Battle 1", 0,
"Viking Battle 1", 0,
"Euro Battle 1", 0,
"Euro Battle 2", 0,
"Euro Battle 3", 0,
"", 0
// custom 1,2 and 3
"", 0
"", 0
"", 0

// BGMP_WIN
// muslim
"Arab Win 1", 0,
"", 0
// christian
"Euro Win 1", 0,
"", 0
// Viking
"Viking Win 1", 0,
"", 0
// custom 1,2 and 3
"", 0
"", 0
"", 0

// BGMP_LOSE
// muslim
"Arab Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
// christian
"Euro Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
// Viking
"Viking Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
// custom 1,2 and 3
"", 0
"", 0
"", 0

Here is my playlist. Notice how I have used the custom slots to add three new kinds of music. And in each kind of music, there are aproximately 5 different tracks of music. I believe you can use six but have experienced problems when doing so.

// Eastern
"Arab Tension 1", 0,
"Arab Tension 2", 0,
"Arab Tension 3", 0,
"Arab Tension 4", 0,
"Arab Tension 5", 0,
"", 0
// Greek
"Euro Tension 1", 0,
"Euro Tension 2", 0,
"Euro Tension 3", 0,
"Euro Tension 4", 0,
"Euro Tension 5", 0,
"", 0
// Barbarian
"Viking Tension 1", 0,
"Viking Tension 3", 0,
"Viking Tension", 0,
"", 0
// Indian
"Arab Tension 1", 0,
"Arab Tension 2", 0,
"Arab Tension 3", 0,
"Arab Tension 4", 0,
"Arab Tension 5", 0,
"", 0
// Roman
"Viking Tension 1", 0,
"Viking Tension 3", 0,
"", 0
// Scythian
"Arab Tension 1", 0,
"Arab Tension 2", 0,
"Arab Tension 3", 0,
"Arab Tension 4", 0,
"Arab Tension 5", 0,
"", 0

// BGMP_MOVING
// Eastern
"Arab Mobilize 1", 0,
"Arab Mobilize 2", 0,
"Arab Mobilize 3", 0,
"Arab Mobilize 4", 0,
"", 0
// Greek
"Euro Mobilize 1", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 2", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 3", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 4", 0,
"", 0
// Barbarian
"Viking Mobilize 2", 0,
"Viking Mobilize 3", 0,
"", 0
// Indian
"Indian Mobilize 1", 0,
"Indian Mobilize 2", 0,
"Indian Mobilize 3", 0,
"", 0
// Roman
"Viking Mobilize 2", 0,
"Viking Mobilize 3", 0,
"Euro Mobilize 4", 0,
"", 0
// Scythian
"Scythian Mobilize", 0,
"Scythian Mobilize 2", 0,
"Arab Mobilize 4", 0,
"", 0

// BGMP_FIGHTING
// Eastern
"Arab Battle 1", 0,
"Arab Battle 2", 0,
"Arab Battle 3", 0,
"Arab Battle 4", 0,
"Arab Battle 5", 0,
"", 0
// Greek
"Euro Battle 1", 0,
"Euro Battle 2", 0,
"Euro Battle 3", 0,
"Euro Battle 4", 0,
"Euro Battle 5", 0,
"", 0
// Barbarian
"Viking Battle 1", 0,
"Viking Battle 2", 0,
"Viking Battle 3", 0,
"", 0
// Indian
"Indian Battle 1", 0,
"Indian Battle 2", 0,
"", 0
// Roman
"Viking Battle 2", 0,
"Viking Battle 3", 0,
"", 0
// Scythian
"Scythian Battle", 0,
"Scythian Battle 2", 0,
"", 0

// BGMP_WIN
// Eastern
"Arab Win 1", 0,
"", 0
// Greek
"Euro Win 1", 0,
"", 0
// Barbarian
"Viking Win 1", 0,
"", 0
// Indian
"Indian Win", 0,
"", 0
// Roman
"Viking Win 2", 0,
"", 0
// Scythian
"Scythian Win", 0,
"", 0

// BGMP_LOSE
// Eastern
"Arab Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
// Greek
"Euro Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
// Barbarian
"Viking Lose 1", 0,
"", 0
// Indian
"Indian Lose", 0,
"", 0
// Roman
"Viking Lose 2", 0,
"", 0
// Scythian
"Scythian Lose 1", 0,
"", 0

Make sure that when you edit the playlist that you do so absolutely perfectly. Make sure each song ends with a 0, and that each group of songs (a slot) ends with a "", 0 below. If you make a mistake the songs will be scrambled up in the game.

3.)
Last of all, you must assign groups of songs to factions. This is how you do it:

Go into the startpos file (the file for the campaign that you are editing) and find the places where it says SetFactionMusic::
You will notice that after each faction, a number is written down. These numbers are related directly to the slots, or groups of music, in the Playlist. So, looking at the original Playlist, 'Arab' music is number 0. 'Euro' music is number 1. And 'Viking' music is number 2. If you add new slots, these would be numbered 3, 4, and 5 consecutively.

4.)
Remember that if you add new songs, they must be in wav format. In some ways this is unfortunate; for example, my music folder for my playlist above takes up 2 gb of space.

I hope I have been helpful; if people need me too I can maybe edit this later and explain better.
Finis

Justin/Iustinus

[Cid]

I actually found a little workaround for "deleting" the battle (armies engaging) music! Kind of simple coming from a simple mind. I deleted the Euro and Arab Battle wavs, copied the least intrusive battle sounds (an "Axe Swoosh", "Clink") to the music folder and renamed them Euro or Arab Battle 1 (2 & 3).wav. This way rather than hearing the music track when archers start firing, etc. I just hear a "swoosh" or "clink" played once or twice. That works for me!

As far as faction specific music I'm going to give it a try (a frightening prospect).

Thanks!

[Weebeast]

Eh? I didn't know we could make extras. I thought we only could have one custom list for each: tension, mobilize, battle, and each group could only contain up to 6 songs.

Iustinus, is that the playlist on RomeTW? It looks like it.

[Iustinus]

Hey Cid
You don't even need to do that as a workaround- by going in the playlist you can probably just take away any battle songs (just make sure you back it up)

Weebeast, I realized it does look like an RTW playlist (I don't have RTW though, so I'm not sure....) it's from a mod I have been making for a long time based off of HTW.
I think the custom lists are the extras..... it says you can have six songs for each slot for each grouping of songs, but I have found that it doesn't work unless you use five; however, I will test it again some time.
Thanks!
Justin