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CK3 Dev Diary #32 - Going Medieval on Audio

Intro

Hey! My name is Björn Iversen and I worked as Audio Director on Crusader Kings 3. Finally, I get this opportunity to write a Dev Diary about what the audio team has been working on for a long time!

We will split up this Dev Diary into different parts: first off, I want to tell a little bit about the Audio Vision and what my ambitions were for game audio. Then we will talk about Sound Design, what is new and improved from previous games, and of course, last but not least, the Soundtrack.

Audio Vision

To start with a short backstory, it is quite a daunting task to work with the audio for Crusader Kings 3, since CK2 had so many years of development that included some of our most iconic soundtracks which are loved by the community. Later down the line we also started to add more Sound Design to the game which some of the community has appreciated a lot.

So initially the big question was: What is needed to be improved for the sequel? What do we want to keep from the previous game? What brand new audio features do we want to introduce?

The first and biggest step up we wanted to do in Crusader Kings III was to have Audio looped in as early in development as possible. CK2 was developed before my time as Audio Director and during those days the studio did not have any dedicated Sound Designers that helped out with the game audio.

First, Andreas Waldetoft (Our in-house Composer and close co-worker) and I could in the early stages of design work on what we wanted to do with the Soundtrack. Then I could also establish an Audio Vision for the Sound Design already at this stage. This would be helpful when my first Sound Designer, Gustav aka ParadoxGustav, would onboard the project to help out with Sound Design. This meant that we could work more on certain aspects that I felt were a bit lackluster in the Crusader Kings II, and the three main pillars for me were:

Storytelling
Since the game is about the characters, their actions, and the tales that are created, it was my ambition to bring all events and character actions more into life with the help of audio. As an example, we have added sound effects to the event backgrounds to enhance the immersion of the event, for instance, if it takes place in a Courtyard it should sound like it.

My goal is that it’s not only the Sound Design that should enhance the immersion of the storytelling, but also have the Music to help with that. A bit more about Music later in the diary.

The Map should feel alive
I always felt that it was a bit under-developed in the previous title, and since we have created such a beautiful map, it was important for me and the audio team that the map would sound great also. If you zoom in to an area of the map with a lot of rivers and forests, it should sound like it is alive. The same goes with holdings, they should sound populated based on the type and culture.

A more calm soundscape
Now, this might sound a bit too abstract, but hear me out! One of the main issues with the previous title was also how, unfortunately, every single audio and music asset wanted to play loud and all at the same time. Another one of our main goals was to have a much better soundscape in which no sound effects are competing with each other too much for a place in the mix, and that the music isn’t too intrusive for the player experience. Basically, we wanted the game to sound more “calm” which is more pleasing to the ears after long gaming sessions.

But enough writing about our goals, let’s show off some of the cool stuff we have been working on with some video footage!

Sound Design

Event Windows

So, the Event Windows have two elements of sound effects. The first one is an “Event Theme” as we call them, and there are different ones depending on the event. Also then, Art made these beautiful backgrounds for the Events, so we wanted to enhance them by adding ambience sound. Here is an example of Marriage Event with those two elements:

If you listen carefully in the video you will hear a subtle feature, once the Event Window is on-screen, the map ambience is lowered in volume to add focus to the event so it’s more invoking to read and get immersed in the story.

And to add some extra flavor for the Events, sometimes the Music will also change when it appears. Here is a video with just the Music and the same Event for an example:

Once all the pieces are put together you will get this result:

I think this is the right approach to enhance the storytelling element of our games that happens through Event Windows.

Since this worked really well with Event Windows we wanted to combine both SFX & Music for other instances in the game such as declaring war;

Ambience

As I mentioned before it was important that the map would sound more alive, and that it would sound different based on nature & holdings, which the team has succeeded in creating! Instead of writing so much about it, I would love to give some examples instead:

Ambience over England here you can hear the different Holdings and Nature ambience:

A personal favorite place on the map for listening to the ambience! I like the details of the river and holdings in this part.

As a third example we hover over India and listen to Dharmic Holdings:

Music

Hi, my name is Andreas Waldetoft aka Jazzhole on this forum, and I'm the Senior Composer here at Paradox. I have worked on most of our internal games throughout the years and have had the pleasure to work on Crusader Kings III as well.

As I composed CK2 back in the days we did not have to completely start from scratch with some of the more recognizable themes. We however wanted a soundtrack that would have much more depth in the sort of sounds one can expect to hear. For example, we have recorded many different medieval instruments, examples are Bagpipes, Hurdy-gurdy, Keyed fiddles, stringed instruments, and many different percussion instruments… to name a few. We also used a full orchestra, solo vocalists, and church choirs.

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Björn has already talked about the use of cue tracks for events and storytelling, which is something we talked about right from the design phase a few years ago. Therefore we have cue-tracks and mood music as a kind of a cornerstone of the soundtrack.
The cue-tracks are often shorter pieces of music that reacts to events happening in the game.
Mood tracks are music that as the name implies, is meant to give a more calm moody experience that is pleasing to listen to for long hours.
Here is an example of a cue I did for an event called “The Crusade Starts”, it is from the Orchestral Session we had in Budapest.

I also did a few orchestral suites for the game to be used as main themes, this excerpt is from a piece called “Knights of Jerusalem” and is once again at the Budapest Scoring Orchestra recording session.


Crusader Kings III has more music than any vanilla strategy game we have developed, so my good friend Philip Wareborn stepped in to help me compose music tracks for different situations in this game. You might have heard his music in the Stellaris: 4th Anniversary trailer which he helped compose.

That is it about the music, I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts once it is released.



Modding
There will be more updates regarding this in the future, but I will touch briefly on this topic now since I know that the community will ask about it… and yes, there is some modding support! There will be possibilities to change out the assets for Mood Tracks and Cue Tracks. It will also be possible to add more tracks as well.

This will be short and sweet for now, since I’ll probably need to create a forum post on how to mod the music but that will happen after release.

But here below is a video showcasing how I switch out “Declare War” Cue Track to another song from Stellaris.


So with that, it's time for me to wrap up this Dev Diary. I hope that you all got as excited as we are for you to hear the soundscape we have worked hard on for a long time.
 
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I'm sure you'll be able to adjust the volume settings in the game. You can even do that in CK2. Just hit the Escape Menu, and click on Game options.

From there, you can adjust the volume on Master, Effect, music, and Ambient. You can disable Dynamic Ambient Sounds, Context Sensitive Music, and even Death Sounds.

I'm sure CK3 will also give you the ability to modulate the sounds however you want to...
I am aware of this possibility, really.
However, other components of ambient sounds are great, so I'd rather not turn them off.

I was trying to offer a constructive suggestion, to maybe tinker with the effects a bit.
If most people don't think there is an issue, I won't throw a tantrum if the audio guys don't wish revisit it.
 
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I am aware of this possibility, really.
However, other components of ambient sounds are great, so I'd rather not turn them off.

I was trying to offer a constructive suggestion, to maybe tinker with the effects a bit.
If most people don't think there is an issue, I won't throw a tantrum if the audio guys don't wish revisit it.

Exactly. The point isn't that we can't change the audio settings ourselves, but that the game should ship with the audio properly calibrated in the first place.

Anyway, I absolutely love the music and the effects. They all sound brilliant and I'm really excited to play the game!

PS: When are we getting a longer peak into the game? Any dev clashes on the horizon?
 
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Great DD.Just one question,will there be a music player at launch this time?His lack in I:R has been my #1 issue for me with the game.So i hope CK3 will have it this time.
Thanks for any replies about this.
I also hope there is as I have the CK2 music on my portable music player of choice along with the EU4 music and listen to them all the time. I will download them all off of youtube when they all go up if not.
 
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Crusader Kings III should have Steam achievements, correct?

Very likely (all the recent pds titles have them ,so I don't see why ck3 wouldn't).

Also, not sure if it was covered, but will there be bookmarks in time you can play, like you can in Crusader Kings II?

You will be able to play in either 867 or 1066, I don't think there are other starts available.
 
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Thanks for the response Blackwhitecavias. The other start dates will probably be added later down the road.

I wouldn't be so certain that CK3 will get a ton of start dates. Adding a start date is a lot of work unless it is very close to another date (e.g. Stamford Bridge and William the Conqueror), and you need to add a bunch of characters between the start dates regardless of whether any of those dates are supposed to be playable as you otherwise won't have properly connected dynasties or proper regnal numbers (to name the two obvious issues), and based on the information we got from a survey done in 2017 it was more popular to use AGOT than it was to use a start date that wasn't 769. 1066, or 867 (936 wasn't an option, at the time), so the time needed to add all of the later starts could be deemed too much for the gain, and it isn't certain the missing early CK2 starts are deemed worth it either.
 
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I wouldn't be so certain that CK3 will get a ton of start dates. Adding a start date is a lot of work unless it is very close to another date (e.g. Stamford Bridge and William the Conqueror), and you need to add a bunch of characters between the start dates regardless of whether any of those dates are supposed to be playable as you otherwise won't have properly connected dynasties or proper regnal numbers (to name the two obvious issues), and based on the information we got from a survey done in 2017 it was more popular to use AGOT than it was to use a start date that wasn't 769. 1066, or 867 (936 wasn't an option, at the time), so the time needed to add all of the later starts could be deemed too much for the gain, and it isn't certain the missing early CK2 starts are deemed worth it either.

Yeah but I think that everyone LIKES new start dates. So even if there's only two to start with, I'd love for more to be added over time. Especially if they add one in 1836 that would on for about, I dunno. 100 years or so?
 
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The music in Crusader Kings 2 is such an important thing to me. Nothing like booting up the game to that theme... getting the gorgeous art in the loading screens preparing for your next medieval adventures.

i will probably port over the music from CK2 after a few games probably for nostalgia purposes but also because it was darn brilliant too!
 
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The absolute dream would be to have minimalist musical layers roaming most of the time and those beautiful compositions you shared with us here when something +/- important happens in game.

Like, somehow, what they did for Red Dead Redemption 2. But with your own touch of course ! ;)




P.S. : I like the ambient sounds, maybe too much white noise and not enough lapping, but still good to me. I may be biased since whenever I hear birds I am happy ! ^^
 
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I do hope you make the sound selection very configurable. I found the background muttering that played every time I did anything involving a person in CK2 so annoying that within minutes of starting my first game I was looking for a way to turn it off. Finding no way to turn just that off, I shut the sound off entirely and, with over a thousand hours played, have never turned it back on.
 
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Exactly. The point isn't that we can't change the audio settings ourselves, but that the game should ship with the audio properly calibrated in the first place.

Anyway, I absolutely love the music and the effects. They all sound brilliant and I'm really excited to play the game!

PS: When are we getting a longer peak into the game? Any dev clashes on the horizon?

Streams would start in August from what I heard.
 
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I wonder what the death sounds are like in CK3.

Because damn the ones in CK2 are... impressive?
You know, when I first saw the thread title last week, I was sure that was what the thread topic was about...
 
I gotta chime in here: it sounds like the music is shaping up very nicely. Knights of Jersualem sounds absolutely beautiful.
CK3 might actually knock Stellaris off its throne for having my favorite game soundtrack. :)