In my opinion, the best civs for desert are Babylon and Egypt, as it is in their start up bias. They can both rush the Petra wonder early, which is game-breaking. If you get +1 Faith/desert tile and Petra, and you have the upper hand by a mile even over a Deity AI.
Incans can be quite good, since other than oases (which are rare) the best desert tiles for Petra are desert hills. They have a hill start bias (which works super well on maps like Sandstorm). Terrace farms are also quite nice and can lead to ridiculously powerful tiles. With their reduced movement on hills, it also means you don't lose a turn moving a settler on to a hill, which usually gives you an extra hammer (or turn of production) which helps out in the early game.
In my opinion, the best civs for desert are Babylon and Egypt, as it is in their start up bias. They can both rush the Petra wonder early, which is game-breaking. If you get +1 Faith/desert tile and Petra, and you have the upper hand by a mile even over a Deity AI.
@ the OP. If you are looking for more challenge, picking a civ which is good in the desert on a desert map will not provide this. You will have the benefit stacked against the AI who do not benefit by the desert.
If you really want a challenge, take someone like Polynesia or Denmark on a desert map, and make your AI opponents Egypt, Babylon, Arabia, etc. Then you will give the AI the benefit and you will have more of a challenge to overcome.
I would agree with this, except the OP said that his stated purpose was to have a more challenging game.I would say people are going a bit far in this thread. Picking a naval civ on a desert map is not a good idea. Would it make it harder? Sure, but it will make it harder for the wrong reasons. I don't find getting rid of the benefits of a certain civilization to be a fun challenge.
If he is actually looking for a fun game that is still challenging, pick the civ that you want. Arabia, Inca or Netherlands would be best as people have said. Their bonuses are not so great that the AI is going to stand no chance against you. Keep in mind that Inca and Netherlands do well on wet maps as well. Arabia is also a powerful civ regardless of the terrain.
For immersion purposes, I would choose Arabia so you can play them how they were meant to be played.
I would agree with this, except the OP said that his stated purpose was to have a more challenging game.
Is the game more fun when your civ benefits from the terrain which dominates a particular map? Sure. Is the game more challenging? Absolutely not.
It is fun to play a small islands map as Polynesia with the Mongolians and Huns as your opponents. It is certainly not as challenging as playing the same civs on a duel sized Pangaea map.
There are only two civs that somewhat can benefit from desert.
A) Arabia, because the Bazaar grants +2 gold from Oases (which only spawn in desert).
B) the Netherlands, because they can build Polders on Flood Plains (which should be a bit more frequent in desert areas than on regular grassland maps).