What is your local gym meta like?
In Singapore, there are many legit trainers, who are highly competitive. Hence gyms with over six 2500+ CP defenders are constantly built and torn down within a few hours. Weaker gyms last less than an hour.
All three teams have a presence, with Valor slightly more popular, as red and white are our national colours. (Red and gold are auspicious to the Chinese majority, while green and white are sacred to indigenous Malays.)
As for species frequency, there is a clear hierachy:
1. Dragonite (dragons are revered in Chinese culture)
2. Blissey (too competitive and Valentine's event)
3. Gyarados (Magikarps spawn like Pidgeys here)
4. Snorlax (strong, white, lazy cat appeals to Malays)
5. Vaporeon (which is common everywhere)
6. Exeggutor (many real coconut trees on our streets)
7. Rhydon (Rhyhorns are uncommon here)
8. Tyranitar (should overtake Rhydon soon)
9. Lapras (virtually unseen before water event)
Answers
I'm surprised that you see a cultural significance regarding what is prevalent in the gyms. It is no coincidence that your top 9 reads roughly like the top 9 CP defenders currently in the game.
Seeing a gym with more than one defender below 2700 CP is uncommon here. Some gyms are all 3000+ CP. Gym presence can be somewhat stable because attacking gyms is typically not the most rewarding use of game time.
I agree that the top nine are "no coincidence". It is their relative rankings that may be influenced by culture. In other regions, Vaporeon would be higher than fifth and Exeggutor would be lower than sixth.
As a water dragon, Gyarados was already very popular before he was buffed. Exeggutor was more popular than Vaporeon before the latter was buffed. Lapras was even rarer back when he was an elite defender.
The gym meta is...not very meta-ish. The gyms stay around level 3-5. The CP is 1500-2600 with an occasional 3000 dragonite. Mostly mid range Vapes and snorlax.
The player base has dropped to around 20 total. Sometimes I can drop a mon in with 2 empty spots and it will stay like that for a few days. Not a whole lot changes between weekends, everyone knows what gyms they belong in at this point.
I keep a full attack team powered yet I rarely use more than 2 when attacking a gym. Hopefully a gym change will bring more players around. If not locals will be collecting 100 coins daily with pidgey defenders if they want.
Trust me. I'm playing a different game from most of you.
The gym activity is moderate here. But the problem is, individual spoofers compose of most of them. How do I tell? He/she would take up gyms hundreds of meters away in less than a minute. But once he's done, he won't get back to fight until next day.
What's even funny is that Everyone has a different "operation time". After one takes up all the gyms, the other will start. They take turns. It's like a agreement.
You see, this game is getting less and less exciting here. You just do your daily gyms run , and that's it. Nobody (even spoofers) bothers to fight another unnecessary battle just for fun. For times I tried to start a battle by deliberately sabotaging their daily gym run (I know their pattern), guess what? They don't care. Nobody comes back to fight.
I need to fight my own defenders for fun. How pathetic.
In my area we have two types of gyms.
The first is the strong, stagnant, no one ever attacks them, level 10 gyms which have at least 7 3K plus at the top, and everything is one of the top 5 in the list.
The second type is the gyms with the high turnover rate that change hands 4 to 10 times a day. This happens because they barely have time to get to level 4, and someone is taking them down. What is funny is that the rapid turnover gym might be less than a few hundred meters from the stagnant level 10 gym.
Our small town has a very clear hierarchy: Valor is strongest, Mystic (me) is a minority with a handful of players in the 30-34 range, and Instinct who may as well not exist. The gyms generally turn over multiple times a day, but will frequently be level 3-6 before they're overtaken. On occasion, red will manage to build both gyms up to level 10 and none of us blue players have time or capability of taking them down and they'll last a week at most.
I feel really lucky that the bottom of must gyms is in the 1500-2200 range with players in the mid 20s. Also, if there are spoofers, then they at least aren't obnoxious or obvious about.
On the big island of Hawaii there is a lot of variation. Main roads right in town have regular turn over. Fortunately there are a lot of out of the way spots too. I've a low powered donphan who's been chilling by the bay for about six weeks. There are some nice hikes and snorkel spots that are pretty far out of the way, many which have a gym or two nearby. I'm pretty sure the spoofers control town. There are three profiles who are always taking over the four or five gyms on the main road which I reside. I assume they are spoofing because I've never actually seen a team of three playing. They're my team so I haven't reported them yet though.
I live in a big city in the southern US. We have lots of Level 10 stagnant gyms that are almost all 3000+ Dragonite, Snorlax and Tyranitar. Blissey too, but there are so many 3200+ Dragonite that Blissey doesn't have a spot in many of the gyms.
But in my neighborhood we have a bunch of high turnover gyms, and 90% of the Mons people put in there are Rhydon, Gyarados and Vaporeon. Some Snorlax and Blissey.
Rhyhorns are pretty rare here (although we have had some nests) but it seems everyone has a Rhydon army.
It's Valorville. At this point I'm pretty sure I'm the only player who even bothers with their monstrous l.10 towers lmao. All pretty much have 5-7 of the same players in them, 2800CP and above. You'll have the occasional gym that flips a lot, but those are the ones on the light rail stops. Anything else is up for stagnation, and probably there already.
