Music Mod

[Philippe]

Adds music from the Ken Burns Civil War Documentary, and replaces the introductory piece with Ashokan Farewell.

Make a copy of your Sounds folder. Unzip this folder to your ACW folder. It will overwrite part of your existing Sounds folder (the Sounds.ini and Music.ini files in your Sounds folder, not an issue if you don't have other sound mods).

In case you've been having trouble making this work, when you unzip the mod, do it into a separate place. The mod folder is named Sound Mod. Inside it is another named Sounds (they both had the same name in previous versions and this may have caused problems).

Copy the Sounds folder but not the Sound Mod folder into your AACW folder.
The program won't look inside a folder to find a file if it doesn't expect the folder to be there in the first place.

[ERISS]

Adds music from the Ken Burns Civil War Documentary, and replaces the introductory piece with Ashokan Farewell.

Interesting. Please could you tell us, about the introductory, why do you replace? Just for an history lesson for newbs.

[Philippe]

The real reason that I replaced the introductory music is that it uses a modern style of drumming which I find very jarring and unpleasant to listen to.

Apart from that, the Ashokan Farewell is heavily associated with the american civil war because it was the theme song for Ken Burn's documentary. It's a piece about wistful nostalgia and looking back. In fact, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the civil war apart from Ken Burns. It's a modern piece composed for the ending program of a fiddler's camp in New York State. Ken Burns had heard it, liked it, and decided to use it as his theme song because it expresses some of his vision of Americans' relationship to that war and its time.

And it's a great piece of music.

I've done something similar for Wars in America with sound clips from the Middlesex County Volunteer Fife and Drum Corps. One of their pieces is called Hector (after Hector MacDonald). It's mushy and sentimental and has to do with a British general from Queen Victoria's era, but could work as an introduction for a series of events from the seventeenth through early nineteenth century. Another possibility would be to use a sound clip of the Gael (the piece that was used as the theme song for Last of the Mohicans). A tad trite, though, and just not the same when not accompanied by a video clip of the female violinist from the Renaissance band with the great stomach.

[Philippe]

FYI, whenever you install a game patch, regular or beta, it will overwrite the sound and music instructions file.

So if you want to continue hearing Ashokan Farewell as the introductory piece, you have to reinstall the Ken Burns Mod.

[Danlo]

Anyone had any luck getting this to work with rc10a?

[Philippe]

My own personal copy of the mod is working with the latest beta patch. I'll probably re-post it after the current one goes official.

Adjusting the mod was pretty easy. The new engine seems to want to read music file number one as the introductory piece instead of music file number ten. So what I've done for now is to switch the two around in the instruction files, and rename the sound files. If that's confusing, get in touch and I'll try to straighten things out. The sound mod works, it just needs to be fiddled with every other time a patch comes out.

[Philippe]

I've just revised the Ken Burns music mod and I think I see what may have been causing people to have trouble using it. My bad. The Sounds folder was inside another folder that was also named Sounds. The content of that last folder was supposed to go into the game's Sounds folder.

You can install the mod in one of two ways, and the totally manual way is always better.

Copy the content of the Sound Mod's Sound folder into the game's Sound folder. That will overwrite some files, but will work because it's the way I do things on my computer.

Alternatively, unzip the Sound Mod to a safe place. You'll find a folder named Sound Mod. Inside of it will be another folder named Sounds. Inside of that should be some files. If you copy the Sounds folder to your AACW folder, the content should end up in the write place. If not, get in touch with me and I'll try to straighten things out.

[Philippe]

And just as a reminder, every time you apply a new patch you have to reinstall the mod.

The patch overwrites the instruction files that tell the program what pieces of music to look for and where they're located. So if you don't re-install the mod, you'll hear even less than the plain vanilla version.

[Aphrodite Mae]

And just as a reminder, every time you apply a new patch you have to reinstall the mod.

The patch overwrites the instruction files that tell the program what pieces of music to look for and where they're located. So if you don't re-install the mod, you'll hear even less than the plain vanilla version.

Thanks for your mod, Philippe! I've listened to your changes separately, and I like them. I'm having a bit of trouble implementing the actual mod, though. After installing the files, when I invoke the game I get a dialogue box that says "cannot find any compatible Direct3D Device", which is followed by a dialogue box that announces that the application will now close.

On a separate note:
I'm not a programmer, and I don't write scripts... but I wonder if it would be possible to write a Windows script that would automate the process of copying and transferring mod files, after each patch/update?

Aphrodite Mae

[Philippe]

Thanks for your mod, Philippe! I've listened to your changes separately, and I like them. I'm having a bit of trouble implementing the actual mod, though. After installing the files, when I invoke the game I get a dialogue box that says "cannot find any compatible Direct3D Device", which is followed by a dialogue box that announces that the application will now close.

On a separate note:
I'm not a programmer, and I don't write scripts... but I wonder if it would be possible to write a Windows script that would automate the process of copying and transferring mod files, after each patch/update?

Aphrodite Mae

I had this problem once a few months ago, but managed to clear it up. Unfortunately I only had it once, so I don't remember exactly what I did.

If anyone else is experiencing this, please give a shout. But I think it may be caused by fragmented files or paths, and is probably cured by doing a clean install.

After the clean install, but before you add the latest patch, try running the game to see if you still get the offending message.

Then, add the patch and try running the game again.

If you still don't get the message, go into your AACW folder and make a copy of your unmodded sound folder before you add the mod to it. Then, add the mod, fire up the game, and see if you still get that message. If you do, we'll take it to the next step.

For the record, I run Windows XP SP3 and am not getting that message.

Another thing to consider is how full and how fragmented your hard drive is, so when you do the clean install, you might want to run your defrag program before and after each step (i.e. before you uninstall your current version of AACW and after you install the clean copy and the latest patch). It sounds like a lot of work, but the upside is that even if it doesn't do anything for the mod, it will make AACW (and your computer) run a lot better.

[Philippe]

Since writing the last post I've also remembered that one of the things I did after encountering the error message a while back was to run chkdsk /r. It's a useful program to know about -- it's been around since DOS days and is native to Microsoft computers. To run it go into the start menu and look for something called run and click on it. Then type in chkdsk /r, but be prepared to go off and read a book for a couple of hours after you restart your computer. The program will identify and repair damaged links inside your hard drive, and damaged links may be what is causing the problem.

I used to try to remember to run it every month or two, because after you run it you'll find that your computer is a bit snappier and more responsive. Best time to do it is just before you go to bed so that it will be done in the morning. On my computer it takes over three hours to run.

And be sure not to forget to use the /r extension (that's what tells the system to repair things, which is why it takes so long).

[Aphrodite Mae]

If anyone is considering this mod but has reservations, you should know that its support is excellent. The problem I mentioned has been resolved, thanks to Philippe taking the time to write helpful notes and advice, via email and PM.

Of course, the music is top notch, and provides a nice change from the routine game fare.

Thanks, Philippe, for a good mod and great support!