Debate: Which Queen abilities do you use?

[TemporarySanityCheck]

You use Royal Guard or Royal Decree?
Do you use Second Wind or Fierce Mother?
Why?
Discuss.

[Mike]

Royal Guard because I think they're neat.

[RealDeathClawProductions]

I personally use Royal Guard for the extra bodies and having ants hatch for free for a short period of time doesn't hurt (might switch to Royal Decree tho) and Second Wind for the full heal and Invincibility for 20 seconds.

[TemporarySanityCheck]

time to butt in with my opinion:
Fierce Mother and Royal Guard.
Royal Guard is just... better then Royal Decree in my opinion? Like for Royal Decree, the attackers have some time to get unstunned (if you run fierce mother) or just extra time for Second Winds invincibility to run out before your ants get there.
Royal Guard makes sure to capitalize on the time that Fierce Mother stuns the attackers for by immediately having ants attacking, not giving them a second to get unstunned before damage is being dealt.
So yeah, I think Royal Guard and Fierce Mother are a good combo, and just the... better abilities tbh

[willtofish]

royal decree and second wind, it gives time to stabilize against a large force by leaving the queen invincible for a long time and by giving you lots of extra forces for free

[Scyobi_Empire]

Royal Guard and the one which confuses nearly all enemies.
The Guard can easily kill the confused attackers and the short amount of time with a free army is useful sometimes.

[Rensy]

I have 3 formicarium colonies but the one i will use the most is royal guard, i'm not so sure about the other 2 abilities though (fierce mother and second wind), In my opinion both fierce mother and second wind are good, one of them makes the queen invincible for 30 seconds and the other confuses all enemies underground area (except for bigger creatures).

[Riccento]

It depends on the situation, but usually I use Royal Guard and Fierce Mother. Royal Decree only really works if your army is decimated, while Royal Guard can immediately taunt ads attacking your queen. Now between Fierce Mother and Second Wind, they're about evenly matched. But, Fierce Mother actively debuffs ads in your nest, making them easier to clear.
I've yet to use the other two a lot though, so I'm pretty biased.

[Horknit]

I have played around with combinations of the two abilities and have formulated these opinions:

Royal guard + Fierce mother:
- Probably the best combo overall, though not my most preferred one, I usually use this only if I'm not going to be brought down to the wire a ton as it takes a longer time to become usable again than the next one. Works well in formicarium challenges especially as stunning alot of little, squishy attackers is very handy if you have splash damage from the wood ants and wipe them out as a result or a good amount of leafcutters as they can take the attention off your squishier troops and prolong the longevity of your defense even more. There is an element of RNG, you can be screwed over sometimes as the enemies in their confused panic might scatter around, perhaps blundering into your more fragile ants like your wood ants then becoming unconfused and then kill several of them

Royal guard + Second wind:
- Probably the most self-sustaining combo and the one I use the most, picture this, whenever the enemies cut past your defenses and reach your queen, whittling her health down to half, the queen immediately heals back up and the royal guards takes some of the attention away from her, as well as weakens or kills the attackers. Your army will also be mostly recovered, sometimes at full hp and your queen will be a good amount of hp that she will probably be able to do it again after the cooldown is done. Works very well on ai in freeplay, though is ok in the Formicarium. This defense will however work less well on things that can immediately overwhelm the guard like large masses of wolf spiders or a giant army of army ants.

Royal decree + Fierce mother:
- I've tried this one relatively often, and it is not as easy to pull off as royal guard + fierce mother, for this one it is very important that you need to shape your nest in a way that your revived soldiers can easily reach the attackers and as such take out the stunned enemies before they become unstunned and you're under attack again. Works better with large numbers of high damage dealing ants. RNG can also occur with this one.

Royal decree + Second wind:
- Try at your own risk in the formicarium, as in my opinion these abilities do not really mesh well together, especially if your ants will take a while to reach the queen and her shield timer counts down. You would need a large/powerful army that is always close to the queen for this to work. This however would probably work for a "rusher" strategy now that i think about it

[V3rtu]

I personally use royal guard and second wind on my queen since they synchronize so well together and when I was nearly dead after formicarium challenge 3 all my soldiers and the royal guard spawning saved me

[The Grand Mugwump]

Skillful digging for old food below the surface.

Royal guard and second wind.

Royal decree is hypothetically better if you have a massive hive, but massive hives either don't need royal decree or they're going to fail anyways due to being overwhelmed and royal decree just buys them 20 more seconds of life. Royal guard does more to help smaller hives and is more useful in more situations. Fierce mother's stun doesn't seem to have a noticeable impact on predators, so I just never used it again.

[ItsMoon_Shadow]

Only ever Royal Decree and Second Wind.

With Royal Decree, you get much a much longer period for free hatching, which is excessively valuable when you have large numbers of ants or very expensive ones.

Second Wind gives you a significantly longer period for your ants to reach your queen, and it's not just about stun, your queen is totally immune. The stun wears off much faster.

My first colony used Fierce Mother, and it failed me many times. I've personally never bothered with the royal guard, though, as you get a peek at their power in a couple of the extra levels. They're only roughly as strong as leafcutter majors.