That you really have to know
Since the theme for the game is Khitai it was only natural that the music be highly influenced by Chinese music LOTR Gold. There are also Japanese elements in there. Some of the cues are Chinese through and through, but most of them are a hybrid of eastern Asian traditional music and European orchestral music. For a couple of months - at least - before I started writing the music, I listen only to Chinese and Japanese music to really get a feeling for it. I had to know it so well that I no longer had to think: Let us see... How do I write Chinese music? Oh yes, pentatonic scale. I read lots of books on instrumentation and orchestration, watched videos of performances and talked to musicians to get to know the style and instruments as well as possible. If you know the instruments and are able to write idiomatically for them, the music will sound Chinese; because that is the music these instruments are constructed for. China has a very rich musical heritage and there is so much variation and so many possibilities that you really have to know it very well to be able to write in the style freely.