Interesting ideas here.

Agree an expansion of different terrain types, expandable by a faction's ZOC, would go a long way. Heavenfall proved it in his EWOM mod (I remember that one faction that spread the snow terrain). Cool.

Imagine a faction that thrives and spreads deserts, swamps, snow, forest, etc.

Preaching to the choir, I know...  maybe SD already has that planned as part of the faction differentiation. I picture factions that receive bonuses (movement, combat, etc) when in their own territory and penalized while in other's.

I do think that Fertile Land spreads far to much late game in FE. It pretty much replaces all the wasteland. I would like to see a limit on how much it can spread because I think a mix of wasteland and grass looks better then just tons of grass. Also ya I find the purple fallen land a little garish.

I thin'k the "Upgraded" lands of your own zone should just be a revivyfied version of the land it is consuming, so if your borders hit desert, it should be a somehow improved desert.

As another note, I think the difference between terrain and svamps are minor, since I NEVER notice swamps until I hover my mouse over the swamps.

I do think they should tie certain chance based results depending on terrain, Iron should be more frequent in hilly terrain, or bumpy terrain, bee hives should be located in forests mainly, - Air nodes on big open plains or deserts. No water nodes in deserts. - meaby not these values, meaby find something thematically correct, but atleast this kind of filter would make new zones more enjoyable to find, and feel different. Also more different types of plains and forests would be nice, as more different types of deserts and mountains. So my big fertile plains doesnt look, and might not have the same resources as the big fertile plains southwest if it, which is conqured by evil evil procipinee.

Also putting in more terrainn would be nice, like more hilly terrain that is walkable, like scotland, vast hillmounded terrain with few plains spots, so cities in those areas would have to be sized on hilly terrain.

Also cities looking abit different depending on where they are build sounds cool!, also atm cities seem to level the terrain to the same heigh, would be cool if this was done less, but added some graphics for cities on hilly terrain.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

FE Beta certainly at this point seems to be lacking the organic and full feel of both HOMM and CIV.

In .86 especially with its lack of quests, exploration is not exciting or even that rewarding, all that you can really hope for is a treasure chest or a wildlands you can try to beat 100 turns later.

The lack of diverse terrain is certainly a part of it and FE would greatly benifit from Savana and Tundra like fertile terrain and as you said the spread of plains everwhere makes the world one giant golf course instead of a living world. 

Another great addition would be a rebalance of monsters and difficult terrain. Natural barriers like Swamps and wastlelands should be be something more like mini wildlands. Just having an unbuildable terrain is boring, instead such areas should have more difficult and unique monsters, resources, quests and rewards. These areas should be harder to pacify than normal territory so that you have a natural next step between normal land and wildlands(200+ turns). The toughest (non Dragon) monsters in the game spawning just 8 tiles from your capital and waiting for you to kill them makes those monsters very boring and commonplace.

That reminds me of a related problem. Fissures

I really dont like how fissures in FE are done, they are huge ugly pits at least 3x3 and usually just 3x4 pits. Fissures should be made something more like (1-2) x (3-7), like rivers you cannot cross instead of giant oddly shaped pits the size of cities or lakes.

Also there should be quest locations specific to terrain. Witch huts in swamps, troll bridges on rivers, cliffside temples on mountains and coastal fortresses on water.

I thought that Frogboy already mentioned that new terrain types were incoming?  I will check and try to post anything I find, or if I was on some good stuff when I thought that.

Is that picture a picture of yawning in Technicolor?