Lo-Fi Games

Forests:
- no sight at all for beginners inside the forest
- very slow moving forward for beginners inside the forest
- a few paths through the forest, but slower than in the open fields
- best place to ambush
- best place to hide when fleeing
- best place for permanent headquarters because it is hard to find
- special forest skill, like "ranger", which increases movement and sight inside the forest. Skill is trained by wandering inside the forest.
- it is possible to clear small place and build a wooden cottage or the gate for a cavity, but trees grow again if you do not build sth.

swamps:
- same as forests: no easy way through, only possble to move with experienced swamp-ranger with skill

mountains:
- same as forest: only special skill "mountain climber" allows passing some high ground paths

These paths can lead to special places, "Shangri La"-like with best conditions: water, rare metals, food, and shelter/cover

These implementations allow weaker and smaller factions to survive against the mighty central forces, even if they are in war against them.

Imagine a situation like ancient Rome against barbarians in Spain or Germany, or the situation of Robin Hood in medieval England.
Kenshi has the opportunity to become the very best game. It combines roleplay, society building, tactical and action elements

forests don't really need a special skill to move thru.
surviving in them does.
the no sight until experienced is kinda of a odd one. because anyone can see in a forest no matter what their experience level is.
swamps could use a skill like that cause not just anyone can walk thru them, and live.
unless you make a boat, which negates the special skill needed to navigate in the swamp.
living in it thou would require a special skill.

Forest:
Well, think about not only vision but also hearing. Experienced rangers move cautious and silently in the wood, whereas beginners make noise.
I also think it is essential that skilled rangers move much faster than beginners. Think about having to look for orientation and trying to move silently. Rangers do that much faster than beginners.

Swamps:
There may be areas where a boat is of no use, think about marsh. No water, but you sink into it if you do not stay on the small paths with solid ground. These are ideal hiding areas for the people who have the skill to move here.

Perhaps this can be condensed a bit more to allow for easier implementation and to prevent overloading the (C)haracter screen with too many skills.

Forest:

• Arbitrary penalty of 0.66 * Athletics while moving through Light Brush, 0.33 * Athletics in Thick Brush, and no penalty to Athletics while on paths (if there are any, or could even become a construction option in the future)
  Whenever Climbing is implemented, perhaps climbing a tree could be easier than climbing a cliff face or the side of a building, and being in a tree would conceal you enough to allow ambush/assassination options.
  Whenever Perception is implemented, perhaps this attribute will take a penalty in terrain that isn't flat/clear.
  Whenever Survival is implemented, perhaps this could lessen the penalties to skills while operating in rough, or dense, terrain.

Swamp:
Regardless of how skilled you are at "moving through rough terrain", swamps are notorious for being places of evil, confusion, and what-have-you.
I'm thinking the thick mud, deep pools of bog water, and dense fog would be so much that the Survival skill won't lessen any penalties brought on by this amount of rough, possibly deadly, terrain.
I'm for allowing the construction of buildings in swamps in the same way as Forests (clear objects on terrain, random plants/trees regrow over time, etc.)

Mountains:
Again, when Climbing is implemented, this would allow scaling of cliff faces, or other vertical points that would otherwise be inaccessible.
Perhaps it would be possible to have a % chance that your characters falls off the cliff if Climbing isn't a high enough value.

As far as having "secret locations" where resources are abundant, I pulled this quote regarding resources in certain locations from the Roadmap found here:
http://lofigames.com/index.php?option=c ... &Itemid=71

Map location based resources. So you have to choose your base location wisely, based on surrounding resources such as stone, iron, water, farmable land.

So it may or may not be implemented in the future to have "holy sites" that have ALL the resources, but it would be extremely entertaining to have to earn certain skills in order to climb mountainsides to get that Iron Ore deposit way up there, or some other similar scenario in forests and swamps.