Here’s the second draft of the “desert world” map:

The features are a little small, but I think you can make them out. This is the previous map, but edited – I remove the climate / terrain types again and added locations of ancient and modern cities, and I placed the global canal network (the black lines).

I am also playing a lot with “shadows” to make the map easier to read, and I think it came out pretty well if I may say so myself.