Dominion HP bonus and combat

[Ragnarok-X]

I dont know if this is intentional, but lets say there is a profince with DOM 10 and i have my god in it. I move into a neighbouring province that has ENEMY Dom at 10. Now, my pretender should have a massive HP-decrease. However, in the combat he still gets the HP bonus as if he was in the +10 province instead of the -10 one. Is it supposed to work that way ?
Was just attacked by a Manticore with 400 HP, it was showing base HP 155, Dom penality -66, total HP 403..
Strength was showed correctly, i.e. lowered.


?!

[Joelz]

I believe it takes one turn before the bonus HP go away. If a turn has already passed, maybe his bonus HP need to be "used" before they go away?
Sometimes this is so confusing.

[Bananadine]

The manticore's maximal number of hit points, for some purposes, is 89, as you would expect. I think that if the 403-hit-point manticore were damaged in combat until it had only ten hit points left, but then healed because somebody cast Regeneration on it (still in the same battle), then it would start to heal, at something like five hit points per turn (5% of 89, not 5% of 403!), until it reached 89. And then it would stop healing, and things wouldn't look strange anymore. For that purpose, the maximum of 89 is a hard barrier, as you would expect.

But for some other purposes, the "maximum" that the unit's profile seems to advertise is not really a maximum. For instance, a unit can gain hit points beyond its seeming maximum by casting Drain Life during battle. At the start of the next turn, it might have "23 out of 15" hit points remaining.

Similarly, a prophet or god that moves around can have its seeming maximum dropped below the hit point count it had before moving, as you've seen. But the hit point count doesn't itself drop in the same way. Here's how hit point counts change between battles, for creatures that are capable of healing (that is, creatures that aren't diseased or skeletons or whatever):

If the unit in question has less hit points than it would normally have when fully healed, then it gains back all its hit points.

If the unit has more hit points than it would have when fully healed, then it loses something like half of the "extra" hit points... I forget exactly how many. So, a prophet moving into increasingly intense enemy dominion will lose a chunk of health every turn, but will always have more health than it seemingly should, because its "normal" hit point level keeps dropping, and its actual hit point count lags behind!

Well, I like explaining things. I think this is all correct, anyway....

[Ragnarok-X]

I dont think that explains the 403 HP manticore. It moved from his home province to mine, so-to-say from DOM 10 (for the manticore) to DOM 2 at best.
It should have its stock HP increased by 20 % and thats it.
It has Astral and Air 8, but no spells were affecting it.

And my units really had to do 400 damage to kill it.

[thejeff]

Right. How does that contradict what Bananadine said?

For pretenders and prophets max hp changes with dominion. If current hp is above max hp (due to dominion or life drain or anything else), it will gradually drop to max hp. I believe it takes several turns, but I'm not sure of the exact formula.

That's what you saw. Low max hp, much higher current hp. You do have to work your way through all those hp, but effects like regen work off of, and only up to, the max.

[Gandalf Parker]

It definitely takes awhile to wear off. Ive made use of it on purpose. Pump up an SC pretender (or prophet), push them thru enemy territories as far as you can until their HP are down again. Then pull back inside your dominion to build up again.

[Ragnarok-X]

So it IS intentional then. I never thought the HP growth would gradually wear off. Thanks for clarifying it.

[Bananadine]

The part I failed to address was that the manticore (according to the example) didn't just have more than 89 or even more than 155 hit points--it was said to have just as many hit points as if it had never moved at all. My explanation suggests it should have about 246 hit points.

But maybe it did have that many, after the battle (or would have, if it hadn't been hurt during the battle). I guess that here, the manticore would start with 403 HP. Then it would move, fight its fight, finish its fight, and finally (if it weren't hurt in the fight) accept part of the dominion penalty. Because healing happens very near the end of a turn.

[thejeff]

Yes, hp loss/healing happens after battles.
I don't think I've ever checked it the other way. If you send a pretender from low dominion into high dominion, will he have boosted hp at the start of the battle?

[Loren]

I believe that you get the hit points you had at the start of the turn even if the situation changes during the turn.

Thus he had the hit points for his +10 dominion. He moved into your province and fought but the hit points weren't recalculated after the move.