An Iroquois Fire Pit Dance
The Native Americans are groups of New World civilizations in Age of Empires II and Age of Empires III that share unique gameplay features. Indigenous to the American continent, these peoples formed many culturally distinct nations and tribes.
Age of Empires II
The Native Americans first feature in the The Conquerors and consist of Mesoamerican natives: the Aztecs and the Mayans. Native American civilizations lack the ability to train cavalry units. Thus, they start the game with an Eagle Scout (an Eagle Warrior in The Conquerors), a fast infantry unit with an extensive Line of Sight, instead of a Scout Cavalry. Also, they lack gunpowder units, but all the Native American civilizations have access to Arbalesters and Siege Rams as anti-infantry and siege options respectively to help offset the lack of Hand Cannoneers and Bombard Cannons.
The Forgotten introduced the third Native American civilization: the South American Incas. Like the Aztecs and Mayans, they lack cavalry and gunpowder units. However, they are able to train Slingers which work similarly to Hand Cannnoneers.
The Vinlandsaga scenario also features the Skraelings, the native tribes encountered by the Vikings during their colonization of the Americas, but they are represented by the Celts (Iroquois Warrior in the Definitive Edition).
Age of Mythology
Native Americans only officially appear on the random map Vinlandsaga where they are represented as "Skraelings", which use the same model and portrait as the Norse Ulfsark, though with a different tooltip and history entry. It is not clear which tribe they are supposed to represent, although their history entry theorizes they could be the Micmac or Beothuk tribes.
Age of Empires III
In the base game Age of Empires III, players cannot play with Native American civilizations, however, they can form alliances with minor civilizations on various maps by building a Trading Post in their native settlement. Forming an alliance grants players the ability to train unique units and access special technologies. Twelve native tribes appear in the base game: The Aztecs, Carib, Cherokee, Comanche, Cree, Inca, Iroquois, Lakota, Maya, Nootka, Seminole, and Tupi.
In The WarChiefs players are able to assume control of one of the three largest and powerful Native American civilizations: The Iroquois, Sioux, and Aztecs. Three new native tribes replace the ones elevated into playable civilizations: The Aztecs were replaced by the Zapotec, Iroquois by Huron, and Lakota (Sioux) by Cheyenne. In addition four new tribes were also featured: The Apache, Mapuche, Navajo, and Klamath.
The upcoming Definitive Edition adds the Incas as one of the two new civilizations while reworking both Iroquois and Sioux, replacing coin mining with with fur trading and being renamed to Haudenosaunee and Lakota.