Civilization – How to disable Cow/Sheep/Horse/Elephant tile sounds

civilization-5

I am hearing Cow/Sheep/Horse sounds coming from the tiles. This is despite having ambience audio volume set to zero. I only have Sound Effect volume above zero.

I find those noises should be ambience, much like when you zoom in on a city, you hear car honk sounds. They are not event sounds or interface interaction sounds. They just randomly go baa while sitting on the map.

How can I silence the lambs?

I tried searching for the MP3 file without luck.

Out of all the animals. I think the sheep noises are the worst of all. I rather not play the game with no sounds.

Best Answer

I have a solution. I figured it out by searching all files that contained the word "Sheep". I discarded scenario and civlopedia files and found this file. Audio3DScripts.xml

I found that file in (could be different for yours)

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common
    \sid meier's civilization v\assets\Sounds\XML

There are two ways, either changing the min and max volume or changing the category of the sound.

Changing the max an min volume being the second preferred option by changing both to zero.

The recommended option is to change the <SoundType> from GAME_SFX to GAME_AMBIENCE

A typical sound entry looks like this. (Since I played an map that showed an elephant, i used that as my test)

<Script3DSound>
  <ScriptID>AS3D_RESOURCE_ELEPHANT_ELEPHANT_FOOT</ScriptID>
  <SoundID>SND_UNIT_ELEPHANT_FOOT</SoundID>
  <SoundType>GAME_SFX</SoundType>
  <iMaxVolume>65</iMaxVolume>
  <iMinVolume>50</iMinVolume>
  <iPitchChangeDown>-3</iPitchChangeDown>
  <iPitchChangeUp>1</iPitchChangeUp>
  <fMinDistance>0.35</fMinDistance>
</Script3DSound>
<Script3DSound>
  <ScriptID>AS3D_RESOURCE_ELEPHANT_VOX</ScriptID>
  <SoundID>SND_UNIT_ELEPHANT_VOX</SoundID>
  <SoundType>GAME_SFX</SoundType>
  <iMaxVolume>30</iMaxVolume>
  <iMinVolume>15</iMinVolume>
  <fMinDistance>0.25</fMinDistance>
</Script3DSound>

All i did was change the min and max volume to 0 or change the soundtype.

Both worked in my tests; no more elephant sounds. You will see there were two entries for the elephant, one for a foot shuffle and one for an elephant call. A few of the animals (or other things) have more than one sound. So just change the type or turn the volume down on the ones "annoying" you.

The file is not long and includes sounds for the following animals.

Whale (blow / splash / song / tail slap)
Sea Gulls
Fish (although i dont recall the sound of fish in the game)
Horse (blow / paw ground / snort)
Chew grass (could be cow)
Cow (moo)
Elephant (foot shuffle/ voice)
Sheep (Baa)

Ha, I silenced the lambs! It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.

Special mention:

Volcanoes
Gyser
Ocean waves splashing on the shore (a number of different ones)
Mermaids (Siren)