I'm kind of a Rome buff myself, I'll be sure to check it out. Something for Carthage: sowing salt. You could use a nuke, down grade everything, especially the damage. Let the polution sit there and turn it into a desert.
The Sahara looks very bare, even thou its like that in realism you should spice it up. It make the map look more appealing. You should also fix the city name thingy. Just google a map of Rome and add in the names.
Interesting about the "sowing salt". I know the Romans punished Carthage in such manner, but I never heard of it happening anywhere else at any other time in history. It could get abused and out of hand in the game.
I actually had a long list of towns and cities for each civilization, but then I decided to delete them and only have the capital cities. The main reason for this was because back then most tribal regions didn't have universal city names. Each civilization most likely called it their own name. For example, the Romans may have called an area Transalpine Gaul, while the Gauls may have called it something completely different. Therefore, I'm leaving it up to the conqueror to rename it to whatever he wishes. Just right click on the city and select the "rename" option. Additionally, the Romans may have called it Carthago, but I'm sure the Carthaginians called it something completely different. See what I'm saying? Just like today, Germans do not call their country Germany. It's Deutchland. The word Germany comes from the name the Romans gave it, Germania. That's why I took out the city names and simply called it "Germanic Tribe #1, #2, #3, etc....".
The other reason I took the city names out is because it would be silly to have the AI establish Brindisi in Northern Italy when historically it was in Southern Italy, or Sparta in Turkey when it should belong in south Greece. That kind of ruins it for me when I see stuff like that.
Then finally, the third reason is because there is no record of "barbarian" city names. You can find plenty of ancient maps showing where "barbarian" tribes inhabited and the names of those tribes, but no actual city names, and I'm not about to give them names like "Paris, Berlin and Cologne". That would be stupid. Those names didn't come into existence until way after the ancient era. This game only takes place in the ancient era.
I could toss a couple specks of plains in the middle of the desert, but like you insinuated, that would be unrealistic. So, I'm not doing that. Besides, you will most likely never journey into the middle of the desert.