By the turn of the millennium, the Redmond-based company was too set in its vision and wanted something for the game that one of the developers of Age of Empires 2 still calls incomprehensible.

Age of Empires 2’s new factions are well known. Forgotten Empires continues to add to the Definitive Edition version of the game… but you have to go back in time to 2017 to see that the game is adding unexpected, but by all accounts unusual, civilizations. One of the original designers of one of the add-ons. Written by Sandy Petersen, who joined Ensemble Studios after leaving id Software (he also worked on DOOM and Quake), Petersen explained on Twitter that he was tasked with designing the first add-on, The Conquerors. Like the original game’s Rise of Rome add-on, Petersen decided to include four playable civilizations, the Spanish, Aztecs, Huns, and Mayans… but Microsoft had other plans.

In 1999, I was assigned to design the expansion pack to Age of Empires 2. I chose The Conquerors as the theme, and wishing to have 4 civs (as we had on Rise of Rome), I chose the Spanish, the Aztecs, the Huns, and the Mayans.

The project went ahead extremely well. We were… pic.twitter.com/b7Af0djI8a

— Sandy Petersen (@SandyofCthulhu) March 18, 2025

“In 1999, I was hired to design the expansion pack for Age of Empires 2. I chose The Conquistadors as the theme, and since I wanted to have 4 civilizations (like we had in Rise of Rome), I chose the Spanish, the Aztecs, the Huns, and the Mayans. The project went extremely well. We were almost finished, 5 weeks ahead of schedule in January 2000. I was excited to move on to Age of Empires 3. Then Microsoft called and we had a big conference call. Microsoft said, “We want you to add Koreans to the Conquerors pack. I said, “The Koreans, to their great credit, were not conquerors. They stayed in their lane. They’re cool, but they don’t fit the Conquerors theme. Here was Microsoft’s argument: “Starcraft sold 3 million copies in Korea.” Here was my counter-argument, which seemed pretty valid to me. “Starcraft doesn’t have any Koreans in it, so those sales had nothing to do with a Korean civilization.” Microsoft: “But … StarCraft sold 3 million copies in Korea.”

I could see where this was going. When someone just repeats a previous argument, it’s clear that they’re no longer operating from logic or intelligence. So I went ahead and we crammed the Korean Civil War into the last 5 weeks we had. Microsoft didn’t give us any more time. We made what seemed like three mistakes. We used the wrong art for the turtle ships (we used a legitimate source, but apparently the Koreans didn’t like that source), we called the Sea of Japan “the Sea of Japan” (it’s called that in every nation but one… yup.), and we said there was a Japanese invasion of Korea from 1592-98, which for some reason was controversial in 2000. A Microsoft representative in Korea was actually arrested and held for a while. In the end, we didn’t sell 3 million copies of Age of Empires 2 in Korea. It sold super well, and so did The Conquerors expansion, but Starcraft could not be toppled from its Korean throne,” Petersen wrote.

Maybe Microsoft should have reconsidered.

Source: PCGamer

In 1999, I was assigned to design the expansion pack to Age of Empires 2. I chose The Conquerors as the theme, and wishing to have 4 civs (as we had on Rise of Rome), I chose the Spanish, the Aztecs, the Huns, and the Mayans.

The project went ahead extremely well. We were… pic.twitter.com/b7Af0djI8a

— Sandy Petersen (@SandyofCthulhu) March 18, 2025