Cue of the Week: “From Fields to Towns”

Empires Apart, launching this month, is a real-time strategy game that revisits the genre with beautiful stylized visuals.

RTS games start peacefully, as the player begins constructing a town in a relatively unsettled natural environment, then pass through phases I call “bustling society” and finally “all out carnage” as other players get involved.

I wrote this track to accompany early gameplay for players who opt to participate as the French. The music draws from European folk traditions and makes use of instruments such as the mandolin and dulcimer.