I haven't played the scenario but I'm pretty sure to feel the same. While the map is always gorgeous, it's effects are not strongly felt for many reasons (territories can give options to find better spot trough anchors, trade giving huge bonuses very early, infrastructures giving huge boosts (how many horses can you trade?), etc.)

Cure_off wrote:

While the map is always gorgeous, it's effects are not strongly felt for many reasons (territories can give options to find better spot trough anchors...

I'm sorry I don't understand.
What do you mean by "anchors"?

Anyway if you have been checking the makeshift leaderboard the high score is 29K!

On my first playthrough I got 13K at turn 140. Less than half the top score.

Although the map is interestingly a desert map with 4 natural wonders in the south, I don't think I will bother a second attempt.

In fact I am now playing Ibn Battuta on another desert map. The Sahara. A real world map I made for the Map Creation Contest (and updated).

I'm sorry if my broken English is not enough to convey my thoughts.
To place districts, you have to choose a tile next to a city or administrative center or eventually another district. Some area seem unreachable but some districts can be place anywhere, like the hamlet and allow to build around it. For a long time part of the community pushes for the same effect for harbors. I thought those district allowing the placement of others around them where commonly referred as „anchors“. As players can play around some area of their territories, it feels to me they can negate most of the terrain effect.
It is also, obviously, the result of a big discrepancy between the yields of the earth and the ones gotten from districts, which soon makes placement only a question of adjacency and not geography.
I think we share the same opinion: the map doesn't have a strong enough impact.

I'd have liked to try your map but I didn't even find a way to force GFN to use the beta. Actually, I can't even get my saves, so feeding the game a map is not an option.

Cure_off wrote:

I'm sorry if my broken English is not enough to convey my thoughts.
To place districts, you have to choose a tile next to a city or administrative center or eventually another district. Some area seem unreachable but some districts can be place anywhere, like the hamlet and allow to build around it. For a long time part of the community pushes for the same effect for harbors. I thought those district allowing the placement of others around them where commonly referred as „anchors“. 

Oh I see.

Yes! I agree.

A desert map should be far more restrictive. 

For example: in Civ VI desert cannot be farmed. I think this is correct (especially for the Sahara). 

Perhaps Farmers Quarters shouldn't be placable on desert or sterile land? (Snow as well).

Maybe this will encourage different play styles? IDK 

Not only desert but also icy parts. It could be unlocked with technologies, after all some countries do produce a noticeable amount of food in the desert using more complicated system than xxx years ago (thinking about Israel). Generaly, intensive agriculture needs irrigation. Playwise, I can understand why it would be bypassed for „green tiles“ but not really for other.

I'd consider the possibility of irrigation with conditions: 

1. have researched the appropriate technology
2. have access to some supply of clean water
3. make a link of farmers quarters from the water source
4. for desert tiles, it would require an extra technology, later in the game. It could also become a bonus, or part of it, (thinking of Garamantes), to be allowed to irrigate desert tiles sooner.
5. It would also be the occasion to create a desalination plants, giving later access to water in arid part of the world. Brine could be a good pretext for a bit of pollution... But it would be one more building and might not be worth the trouble, making the game more complex for not much gain.

One other thing that bothers me and makes the map less relevant is the amount of food gained through trade. On a huge map, cities gain huge bonuses, without necessarily having infrastructures, completing the trend of not having to care so much for placement (quite early in the game, a 2/16 outpost would be far more intersting than a 16/2).