The Age of Empires III team ran into a similar problem with its representation of early American history -- how do you deal with the presence of Native Americans? "This was something we gave a tremendous amount of thought to." Shelley said, "Fortunately, we had a resource within Microsoft (Age of Empires III's publisher) that lent us a hand." Apparently there is within Microsoft a group of Native American employees that the team at Ensemble met with to discuss the issue. "There was a lot of back-and-forth with the committee to get a recommendation out of them."
Some members of the group felt that the game should just focus on the European experience entirely and leave Native Americans out completely. Others felt that the game might benefit from having one or two Native American tribes in the game as completely playable civilizations, though this drew protests from those who, remembering many ugly events from history, didn't want it to be possible to wipe them out completely.
"It was really the suggestion to focus on the European experience that really triggered the brainstorm." Shelley said. The team decided to view the Native Americans as part of the map, a resource that could be plugged into the player's technology tree. That's how Native villages became an indestructible part of the map, and how American Indian military units will end up fighting for the players. The team brought in a number of expert historians to help make sure that the Native American portrayals were as accurate as possible, down to clothing they wore, the types of housing they lived in, and even the weapons they used. Thus Carib ranged units fight with blowguns, Iroquois melee units with tomahawks, and Aztec Jaguar Warriors with obsidian studded wooden swords.
"We wanted to be sensitive to the Native American perspective, but we're making entertainment here, not pushing any sort of political agenda." In an ironic twist, that might actually make the game more historically accurate since while the team worked to emphasize the positive aspects of Native American cultures, they didn't shy away from some of the negative ones either. The Carib, for example, were cannibals, something mentioned in the game's historical database. Kenyanke, a major character in the single-player campaign second act, is a Mohawk and main character John Black's best friend -- as well as an implacable enemy to the Cherokee whom they both end up battling quite a bit. "We think the addition of Native Americans ended up being really positive for everyone involved -- especially the gamers." He concluded, "Now check out the Incan Bolas Warrior -- these guys are so cool!"
