Is there any methodology or pattern to picking better stats to emphasize for location and other world encounters?
Yes, different locations do skew toward different skills.

If you really want to know, you can look at something like this cheat sheet. I personally think that kind of spoils the game a bit, though. It's not as bad as if you just looked through the encounter cards yourself, but it still takes out a bit of surprise and fun in playing. The one broad rule is that encounters do depend on luck a bit more often than other skills in general, since they're the only place it's really used.

The kind of edge you can get from this knowledge really isn't too large, though. The most likely skill needed in an area might not be much more likely than the other skills, and some locations are probably pretty evenly balanced. Your skill focus is often substantially restricted by what you need to do to move/fight. And it's certainly possible to do quite well in the game without that little edge. So I think you might as well just play a bunch of games and learn that way!