Pokemon Go

[Zippo]

Since the three step nearby issue is still around (some say it is deliberate), I have been using a few suggestions from programmers and utilizing "bots" in order to scan my local town and the larger city I work in, in order to a) find the spawn points and b) find what spawns there

With only a few days data, I have already been able to find a few nests where one Pokemon seem to exclusive live, along with other areas that have a higher number of some of the less common items.

It all still comes down to luck and timing however as to what will spawn when you visit the area at the correct time. Due to needing to collect multiples in order to get candies and evolve, along with how a Pokemon will get stronger as you level up I can already see multiple visits in my future to these locations.

All of this is of course against the terms of service, but it does actually make the game fun, otherwise my only hope of getting some items is via hatching eggs.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

We were wondering if because of the human population here the pokemon are released in larger proportion too.
Although he says it also helps that there are 2 poke-stops within 100 metres of our apartment block and a lure right in front of Tim Ho Wan (the restaurant) which is only about 200 m away from us.
He was waiting for the lift to come back up to our apartment before and caught 4 pokemon just while waiting!
Do businesses pay for these poke-stops and lures? I just went for a walk with him and it seems every few restaurants there is one... seems too convenient that these lures are in front of places where you'd go in and sit down...

I think the population is key. I'm in country Japan, and with very few gyms, even less pokestops and a smattering of Pokemon around the area.
However, I headed into Kobe when I was off on holiday and pokestops/gyms everywhere. Pokemon out the wahzoo. Completely different to what I see daily. Oddly, after coming back from the holiday, I had no pokeballs, a short slow bus ride through kobe and I had amassed 60 just because I manage to pass so many pokestops on the way.

I kind of wish that the pokemon were more realistically distributed. Like grass pokemon in grass areas, say Ponytas in wide spaces, water pokemon by the sea/pools etc. I get the feeling that isn't actually the case.

i'm not sure if it is related or not but i heard something about mcdonalds getting involved in some countries, so if you go to a mcdonalds it has some kind of pokemon related thing there.

McDonalds is definitely associated in Japan. They've made it quite public knowledge.

On a slight side note, there is a local Otaku who was level 25 by the night of the first day release here in Japan, and had a Magmar placeed on the closest gym to me. Now, that is a lot of work considering hwo the game got releaed at about 10.30 that day. I noticed the gym taken at about 8pm.
Yesterday I had a look and the also has a Gyarados. Meaning he has already picked up 200 Magikarp.
yowseers.
As you can imagine, me and my weak buddies have made it our mission to take him down whenever we see him at a gym. No matter how much it costs us (in potions etc)

[i_amtrunks]

Hatched a squirted yesterday, after not even seeing one for the last few weeks and now I've caught another 3 while at Eatwood to see a mate today.

Eastwood station is a gym and while I was at my mates place it changed hands at least 15 times in two hours!

Population definitely makes a difference, I caught more and a wider variety of Pokemon in two hours at Eastwood than I do in a day at Penrith, more players does seem to equal more Pokemon.

[Firestorm]

Is it worth powering up Pokemon before evolving them?
I've been putting off evolving my Pokemon and focussing on powering them up instead but after seeing someone's Eevee jump from 400-something to over 1000 after evolving into Vaporeoen I'm wondering if I've actually been holding myself back by not evolving sooner

[1AZRAEL1]

I am testing it out myself to see which works better too. Maybe the higher you power up, the higher it will evolve.

[Paulbot]

Read something about how far your Pokemon is along it's arc before it evolves is where it will be when it evolves, which could mean a powered up first evolution will be on par with where a second evolution would be if you evolved first.

Best advice I saw was to not evolve any starter level Pokemon until you have enough candy to evolve it to the final stage. I've found that good suggestion as have definitely found more powerful Pidgeys and Ratattas than the first one I evolved.

[1AZRAEL1]

Other thing to note is if you've powered up as much as allowed, when you level up, you can power up more

[Zippo]

Is it worth powering up Pokemon before evolving them?
I've been putting off evolving my Pokemon and focussing on powering them up instead but after seeing someone's Eevee jump from 400-something to over 1000 after evolving into Vaporeoen I'm wondering if I've actually been holding myself back by not evolving sooner

Neither
Only evolve "commons" in order to gain XP (while using a lucky egg) and do not evolve any others until you reach level 30 which means you should be finding the strongest versions in the wild.

Then you can evolve your best and then spend your stardust raising them even further.

[1AZRAEL1]

Okie dokie, did a small experiment to see what works best and here's what i found. I had 3 Pidgey at varying levels and here is how their evolving progressed.

CP 153 - 294 - 524
CP 155 - 297 - 529
CP 329 - 618 - 1089

So that 170 odd difference early on, makes for roughly 500 by 3rd evolution. So seems spending time to power them up early will pay off in the long run

[i_amtrunks]

Took some visiting friends and Pokemon go players on a tourist run through circular quay, botanical gardens, opera house, rocks and darling harbour. I only played a little yet still caught over 50 mons and filled my bag with poke balls at the ridiculous number of poke stops.

Catching ponytas and voltorbs at the opera house was fun, but really showed me that as nice as living in the suburbs is, if you want all the Pokemon, the city is the place to be!

My wife and our friends went from level 15 to 17 just from stops and catching, but will inevitably go higher once they crack a lucky egg and get evolving. My wife went from 46 caught to 80, again, before evolving.

Crazy!