Age of Wonders 3 is a beautiful game and I mostly use it to do terrible things to wyverns.

There is a mid-level Sorcerer spell called Invoke Extraordinary Mount, and it is exactly what it sounds like: you do an invocation, you get a mount, and it will be extraordinary.

Or a raptor, because what more would you want from forty mana than a bow-legged, land-locked lizard? I never allowed them to hatch. My lands were littered with abandoned eggs, discarded the moment I realised the reptile within was flightless. I was the reason the RSPCA makes adverts.

Did you know that if you give a rat a button which provides it with a pellet, it will largely use it as and when it needs to? The stability keeps it calm. But if the button is unreliable, only paying out five times out of ten, that rat will lose its tiny shit. It will hammer on that button until its little velvety paws quiver with exhaustion, hoard what it gets, and take more than it needs to. There’s a theory that this is the same sporadic reward system that makes humans drop our rent money into slot machines. It’s fascinating.

I like to call it the Unpredictable Wyvern Effect.

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