I think a great compromise would be to show 24 tiles around the players town center as fog of war. That way you can see your starting resources, but not the enemy layout.

mod the town center to have a larger line of sight.
doesn't a civ already get this bonus though?

Teutons.

For blackforest, people need to see only forests but nothing else, because they can see what his enemy is doing by just palasiding, or does he have a forward gold or not,.With semi-explored(only forest) they just need to wall whereever they want, and explore rest of the map.