Optimizing Pokemon Go Gift Exchanges / XP from Friendship levels

The addition of Trading / Friends / Gifts to Pokemon Go has added an extra level of play (work?) to the game. These are my thoughts on how to optimize friendship and gift sending and opening.

My starting assumptions:

  1. The goal of exchanging gifts is to build up friendship levels as quickly as possible so that Pokemon trades cost less stardust. [I am explicitly rejecting the idea that the primary reason to open gifts is to restock items.]
  2. You have not yet reached level 40 (or still care about building up your XP) and are willing to use Lucky Eggs to increase the XP you receive from friendship level increases.   [If you don’t care about XP, optimizing Pokemon gift exchanges becomes much easier.]

 

The Simple System (for Level 40 Players)

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