Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs Q&A - First Details, New Civilizations, Better Home Cities

The Age of Empires III expansion finally has a name: The WarChiefs. The expansion, whose existence was officially revealed last month, will build upon last year's best-selling, historically themed real-time strategy game. However, while Age of Empires III let you play as one of the various European powers colonizing America, The WarChiefs will introduce Native American civilizations that you can play as. There's other new content as well, including a new campaign and improvements and additions across the board. So we turned to Ensemble's Sandy Petersen, one of the lead designers of the expansion, for some of the first details.

GameSpot: Ensemble hasn't released many details regarding the expansion pack to date, so what can you tell us that's new? All we know is that it will feature three playable Native American civilizations and that it will have new content for the European civilizations. We also hear that it will feature new ways to play and win the game.

Sandy Petersen: Well, one of the native civilizations is the Iroquois Confederation as you know. We are going to unveil a second civilization at E3, I believe. The natives play very differently from the Europeans, and that is one of the things we want to emphasize when talking about WarChiefs. The Europeans are getting new stuff, ranging from new units to new home city cards to new mercenaries. They are also getting some new options that were not in the original game. We are also adding new maps, new paths to victory, and new game options.

GS: Aside from requests for new content and new civilizations, what's the most common feedback that you receive from Age of Empires III fans regarding what they'd like to see?

SP: Well, everyone has their pet idea. Really, there are so many different requests that no single one stands out. I think one of the most common requests was for the campaign to hew closer to history, instead of being quite as fiction-based.

GS: What can you tell us about the new single-player campaign? Who will you fight as, and what's the goal going to be (aside from winning the campaign, of course)?

SP: Well, I don't think it will break the bank to say that it will fill in some of the gaps in the Black family saga. With that said, this time the Black family will be involved very closely in actual historic events, wars, and battles. Basically every scenario is about a real-world occurrence.

GS: Tell us about the new Native American civilizations, such as the Iroquois Confederation. Will they differ vastly in playing style from the European civilizations? And how will they match up to European technology?

SP: They have all-new units, a different building selection (for example, they have a war hut, a corral, etc.), and some exciting special abilities unavailable to the Europeans, not least among them the use of the mighty WarChief himself. The natives have to solve the same problems the Europeans do, but they obviously do so in a different way. Each Native American civilization has unique features that enable them to deal effectively with the Europeans without becoming similar to the Europeans.

GS: What sort of improvements to the home city will there be? And, speaking of which, will the Native American civilizations have home cities of their own? If they did, would that make any sense?

SP: Right now we are working on what the improvements to the home city would be, but we won't talk about it until these are finalized. But there will be improvements to the home city. Native American civilizations will have the home city features; however, they will be presented in ways that are unique to each of the new civilizations.

GS: Are there any lessons that you've learned from Age of Empires III that you're incorporating into the expansion? Perhaps it was a balance issue, or perhaps it was something that didn't turn out like you expected it would.

SP: Yes, plenty of these. Just to pick out one, we expected people to spend a lot of time fighting in the second age. It turned out this was more the exception than the rule.

GS: How long have you been working on the expansion? Was this something that began while Age of Empires III was in development, or was it started up after the game shipped?

SP: There was talk about it before Age of Empires III shipped, but no actual work was done. We pretty much started in November, after no more than a few planning meetings.

GS: Finally, do you plan any major updates to the core game with the expansion? Usually, expansions are a good time to introduce a new patch or to address existing issues. Or perhaps there are some graphical upgrades or tweaks to the engine?

SP: The new features and civilizations we are including could be perceived as major updates, although you'll have to wait until around E3 to judge for yourself. As far as patches go, we have a post-ship team that has been and will continue doing a great job addressing existing issues as well as getting new features into the game through patches.

GS: Thanks, Sandy.