 Twelve different tribes of Native Americans are in the game as well , but these are not in themselves playable factions . However , players can gain access to unique units and improvements by forming an alliance with the tribes by building a trading post at their camps . The native tribes featured are the Aztec , Carib , Cherokee , Comanche , Cree , Inca , Iroquois , Lakota , Maya , Nootka , Seminole , and Tupi . Three of these tribes were made playable in the expansion pack Age of Empires III : The WarChiefs : the Iroquois , Lakota ( under the name Sioux ) and Aztecs . These civilizations were removed as the smaller , alliance based tribes and were replaced by the Huron , Cheyenne , and Zapotec , respectively . In The Asian Dynasties another three civilizations were added , along with several new native tribes . The civilizations are the Indian , the Japanese , and the Chinese . 
