In 1999, my task at Ensemble Studios was lead designer for an expansion pack to Age of Empires 2. The previous expansion had been Rise of Rome, which made sense, because Rome followed the various older nations featured in Age of Empires 1. But there wasn’t any obvious super-nation after the middle ages, so we went with the generic “The Conquerors” as our theme. So naturally we wanted conqueror civs. Rise of Rome had 4 civs, so that’s how many we wanted - I chose the Huns, the Spanish, the Mayans and the Aztecs. I was super-excited to finally get Aztecs into a game. (And I don’t need any of you whippersnapper mansplaining to me that the Aztecs were bad guys. Buddy, I put them in the game BECAUSE they were bad guys.)
Anyway, The Conquerors project went super-smooth. Five weeks AHEAD of schedule, we were almost complete – almost unheard of in a software project. I was proud. The whole team was excited because now we’d be moving onto Age of Mythology or Age of Empires 3. So non-stop gaming development.
Then Microsoft called.
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