Units

Forlorn Hope

The Forlorn Hope is the elite infantry unlocked by the harp doctrine Ghaza: its identity is breaking morale.

The doctrine itself is the prerequisite

It carries no resource prerequisite — its gate is researching Ghaza, meaning having chosen harp as your doctrine. Because the doctrine choice is exclusive, if you have chosen muhafaza or imar as your doctrine in the same match, this unit can never enter a queue (Ghaza, Research and the tech tree).

The highest attack, carried with shock

Its attack is 6 — the highest among the infantry — and on top of that a 1 share adds shock: it adds straight onto the defender's morale loss, on top of the damage and flanking shares (Morale and rout, "How morale drops"). Its discipline of 2 also holds its own morale for longer than the rest of the infantry.

Low defense, a fragile body

Its defense is 1 — the lowest among the infantry together with Archer — and it does not enter the type triangle (it appears in no row of

Gets the Barracks' share, not the kapikulu extra

If its city carries a Barracks, the Forlorn Hope is also raised with that share — the Barracks' share is independent of unit type and carries no infantry requirement (Barracks). But it does not fall into the infantry class defined by Experience and promotion's "Starting experience": it does not get the Household Troops extra share that Spearman, Janissary and Archer get — that extra is tied to the muhafaza doctrine anyway, and its lock is never opened in the same match as harp.

When to build it

For a player who has chosen gaza as their doctrine and pushes an attack-first style: its high attack and shock share push a target toward being shaken or routed even without killing it. Because its defense is low, it is not a unit meant to hold a line alone — holding the line stays the job of Spearman or Janissary, its job stays striking.

The numbers on this page are read from the game’s balance tables.