Trivia / Age of Empires III

• Ascended Fanfic: Definitive Edition, especially by the 25th Anniversary Update, has incorporated various elements from the Napoleonic Era mod for the original game, from having the Swedes as a playable civilization to Revolutionary France as a fleshed-out Revolution option for the French.
• Creator Backlash: Bruce Shelley went so far as to call it a "huge mistake".
• Executive Meddling:
  • Microsoft was extremely concerned about not offending Native American groups and had the team subjected to an informative talk at one point (which lead designer Sandy Petersen called the "most boring three hours" of his life). If you can think of any bizarre omision or other aspect that can be remotely explained as not offending Native Americans, it's likely because of it.
  • For The WarChiefs, Microsoft insisted that Ensemble could not feature or reference Crazy Horse in any way, which the devs found absurd because a Sioux campaign would have to be about him. They eventually compromised in having Crazy Horse appear as a secondary character in the campaign, but making the Sioux skirmish leader the obscure Chief Gall.
  • You may notice that at the game's version of Little Big Horn you don't command Crazy Horse, nor are Sitting Bull or even Gall himself referenced. Instead they are changed to Chief Bull Bear and Chief Brave Wolf, and only the Cheyenne are led by their Chief Two Moons.
• Refitted for Sequel: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Screwed by the Lawyers:
  • Mexico is represented in-game by the flag of the Three Guarantees, which was a symbol of Revolutionary Mexico but short-lived as a national flag and replaced in 1821 with the modern tricolor. The complete lack of the modern Mexican flag is likely due to the country's unusually strong flag use laws, which essentially prohibit all displays of the flag in media unless you acquire a permit to do so.
  • The Haudenosaunee and Lakota use fictional flags because the most common flags used by these groups were only adopted in the late 20th century and are still copyrighted.
• What Could Have Been: Has its own page.

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