Template:Infobox Civ The Cree are a Native American tribe in Age of Empires III. Like all natives, they can be allied with by building a Trading Post at their Trading Post site.
The Cree are available on the Saguenay and Yukon maps.
Units
- Cree Tracker: Ranged infantry similar to Skirmisher with high hit points but slow attack speed. Up to 13 may be trained per settlement.
- Cree Coureur des Bois: Exactly the same as the French one. Up to 5 may be trained per settlement.
Upgrades
Cree upgrades focus on boosting allied economies and the hit points of all infantry and cavalry warriors.
| Age | Icon | Improvement | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
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Cree Tanning | 100 food, 100 coin | Infantry and cavalry get +5% hit points |
|
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Cree Kinship | 225 wood, 225 coin | Cree Tracker build limit +50% |
|
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Cree Textile Craftsmanship | 175 wood, 175 coin | Buildings cost -25% wood |
 |
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Cree Warrior Societies | 200 wood, 150 coin | Upgrades Cree Trackers to Elite |
 |
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Champion Cree | 400 wood, 300 coin | Upgrades Cree Trackers to Champion |
Usefulness
- Cree Tanning is of questionable value due to the low number of hit points granted by the upgrade.
- Cree Kinship is a situational upgrade, used for native rushes or in Treaty games (or just to have an even larger maximum population).
- Cree Textile Craftsmanship is extremely useful for any civilization, but particularly those which have cards reducing structures' Wood cost even further.
- The Advanced Trading Post card available to all civilizations is particularly useful with this upgrade, lowering the cost of trading posts to a mere 87 wood for European and Native American civilizations (whose card reduces cost by 40%), 137 for Asian civilizations (whose card reduces cost by 20%). Maps featured in The WarChiefs reduce the cost of trading posts to 200 wood instead of the usual 250, so they will be even cheaper on those maps.
In-game dialogue
The Cree language (also known in the most broad classification as Cree-Montagnais, Cree-Montagnais-Naskapi, to show the groups included within it) is the name for a group of closely related Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 117,000 people across Canada, from the Northwest Territories to Labrador.
- Ki'gway (ready)
- Ta'ntsi (commander)
- Ao'm'esi (I'll do it)
- Da'k'ut'i (I'm going)
- D'uta (attack)
- Iy'uy Mai'tch'iyy (to battle)
History
| “ | The European's earliest knowledge of the Cree placed them in the woodlands around James Bay in Quebec, where they lived in small family groups. From there the Cree gradually spread westward and eventually the lands they occupied stretched from Quebec across the Great Plains to the mountain ranges near the Pacific Ocean. With the arrival of first the French, and later the British, the Cree became engaged in the fur trade. They traded guns to the Blackfeet for the horses they needed to prosper on the plains. By the nineteenth century the Cree had been drastically reduced by disease, especially smallpox, and recurrent wars with other tribes retreating north to escape white settlers pushing up the Missouri River. With the fur trade dropping off and the buffalo disappearing, Cree leaders began working toward creating a safe homeland. They wanted a large native reserve where they could adapt to the European farming lifestyle, yet live according to their own culture, but the government denied their plan. When other tribes tried to fight, the Cree were swept up in the military action and most were settled on small reserves. Many Cree in the far north escaped forced settlement and maintained their independent life style well into the twentieth century. | ” |
Gallery
A Cree settlement with Tracker and Coureur des Bois
An alternate Cree Trading Post icon, note the brown color highlights versus the player color of the Cree tracker unit.
Template:Civilizations (AoE3)