Im surprised Furs wernt used as a resource in the original AOE3 as they were a huge gold resource, so much history in that. With DE there was an opportunity to include it for the gold resource for the Lakota and Haudenosaunee. (Aztecs are fine)
Instead of mining they could of added a gold generation mechanic when hunting. Native villagers now gather gold along with food. This sounds overpowered but it depends on the rate of gold generation. If its kept low with techs or cards that bring it up to mining by age 2/3 then it wouldn’t be OP. Since villager space is freed up for not needing miners balances would need to occur. Either more expensive tech, slower villager creation rate, lower hunting gather rate for food or switching age up from gold to wood might need to be employed to balance things out.
The other big thing would be what would happen to all the mines near a native civs base, would in team games native civs allies be at a huge advantage? Yes probably. To counter this have mines that spawn near native civs bases be changed to more animals. That might be outside the games current mechanics but im thinking something like if mine is within X tiles of native base replace with Y amount of animal.
Also where are the beavers? add beavers please.