Currently I have 7 (update: 8) gold badges. In Singapore, there's no such thing as easy gold gyms by holding a gym for 20 days. Gold gyms are mostly earned through raids, battling for hours against GRB feeders, and feeding berries.
I'm already considering powering up a Lugia, just for the purpose of sweeping through gyms for gym badge points with potion efficiency. If I run into a Tyranitar or Aggron, I'll just switch to Machamp.
I have broken down those gyms into groups.
Group 1: 5 gyms, 4 gold. The last gym used to be completely "locked out" for instinct. It’s possible now, but I’m focusing on completing Group 3 for now.
Group 2: 3 gyms, 2 gold. The 3rd gym is rather out of the way and somewhat locked out for instinct, so I'm skipping it.
Group 3: 7 gyms, 1 gold. My main gyming and raiding area right now.
Group 4: 7 gyms (1 EX eligible), 0 gold. I don't usually gym here, mostly raiding T5s here because of gym control.
Group 5: 5 gyms (1 EX eligible), 0 gold.
Group 6*: 4 gyms, 0 gold. These 4 gyms are almost impossible for Instinct to survive in. I don't even bother raiding T5s there anymore, because even raid lobbies are Mystic-heavy.
In the old gym system, there were 3 gyms in this area. The gyms are very close together, so it was a very popular gyming spot for a high-turnover area. I used to gym here too.
Most of those gyms (besides group 1) can't actually be seen from my house, but they aren't that far, and that area has strong presence of my team (instinct/yellow, see comment below).
Groups 3 and 4 look like this most of the time. While it's obviously good for raiding, is it good or bad for getting gold badges?
The group in this photo is Group 3. The twin gyms on the left edge are my favourite spot when I'm short of potions, especially when they're both yellow.
Unfortunately the 3 park gyms on the right edge (there's 1 more gym off screen) aren't EX eligible.
33, 23 of which I got last month. The Showdown event made things easy and let me finish most of the gyms in the city centrum. Still got pretty burned out by all the sitting in place, I'd much rather walk and catch, so now I'm just casually working on a few new gym projects.
It wouldn't be that hard to reach some gyms that would stay for days and be easy to get gold, but I just don't see much point in that.
10 out of a little over 50 in the immediate area (5 km radius out from town centre or so) and 1 out of another two dozen scattered throughout the villages another 5-10 km out. This includes the 3 I can see from my house, but only one of the next closest three or four. However, I don't even have all of the local ones spun, even though I know where they are.
I have a good number of silvers over 50%+, but it's sometimes difficult for me to raid consistently, as I work from home and/or parent during most raid times. Most of my gold gyms come from victories and raids, coupled with feeding every berry I have. The gym scene can be quite competitive, and even with the low-turnover ones, you rarely last more than just over a day without something external (like Christmas) going on.
I have 9 which are on my mean daily route. Been reworking the route to try to add more raids in my daily travels so I am currently working on 15 more that are all silver and about half way to gold. Some are out of my way but also close. Those I usually hit when there is going to be a raid I have time to do.
I have 16 golds - 13 of which are near my house and three of which are near where I work. Of those there are five between my house and the train station that I usually use to get my daily coins.
The 13 near my house I have gold status via time defended but the three near my work are mostly from doing raids (one of them I only have 25 hours defending)
I have 38 silvers of which 15 are from gyms in places that I have visited only once (typically while I was on vacation). There is one gym in Morocco that I have 18 days 2 hours defended and 208 treats which puts me so close to getting gold that it irks me a little that I didn't focus more on dropping berries on it before I lost it.
A whopping two. Got a ton of silvers that are halfway there though. This probably isn't said much (lol) but Instinct like to take and keep gyms around me well past the 8 hour mark. I've seen Pokemon held in the gym over a day and a half with freshly berried motivation bars. If another team takes them they don't stay for longer than a few hours usually.
I've got 10 Gold Gyms, with another 20 gyms being about 5000xp away from Gold. I could easily have 30 Gold gyms, but once I get my 50 Pokecoins for the day I generally stop taking gyms. And I tend to only do 1 Raid a day, mostly at Gyms near home so they already have Gold badges.
Once I hit Level 40 (4.5 million XP away!), I plan on focusing on getting 50 Gold Gyms and 20,000 hours of Gym defense. (Currently at 14,500 hours of Gym Defense; not a lot of turn over in my area.) My area is pretty evenly split between Yellow and Blue, with the occasional Red doing a Drive-By Gym attack that Yellow and Blue reward by leaving them in the gym for 9 hours in thanks for that Red getting us our Pokecoins for the day. (seriously, it's hard to get more stereotypical Canadian than how my area tends to treat Gyms. "Oh, you've been on for less than 8 hours? I'll go somewhere else and come back in a few hours.")
As for EX Eligible, I used to focus on those gyms, but the last 4 EX Raid passes have been at terrible times for me and I'm actually skipping one next week because there is no way I can get to it. So I've decided to focus on the raids only, and not care about whether or not I'll get an EX invite.
You should be happy if they use GRB to defend gyms. Everytime you defeat a pokemon with 3000cp for example, that's 30 points times 6 Pokemons for entire gym, that's 180 points. To me, that's worth 2 hours in the gym, and that's one pass. Some time I come to a gym and really needed the points, I would taunt them by delaying kicking out their mon's, just to let them have some time to feed those GRBs. And if I am in a hurry, just use 3 man synch method and kick them out.
