Personally I think the way that Inferno handled it with Summer Temples is probably my favorite iteration of this.

You have a couple of specific locations where you can acquire a decent amount of Dust in the mid-game that are at least worth heading towards with a Hero army for the sake of XP at the very least.

Of course there's also the APM requirement which I think people find frustrating, in that you're currently trying to manage an entire Empire while at the same time caring about every single little tile inside of it. That's not how the human mind can work at such scales, so you have to simplify things down at some point.

I've been doing a Endless Legend Wishlist series that I'm going to be completing sometime this month, and in it I basically recommended two elements of what we already know. First of all, Ruins are out on the map that can be searched for Science (and Dust), but their tile also provides a significant amount of Science as well, so you might want to settle near them.  But what if you don't or can't afford to settle near them?

Well there's also a new military mechanic called "Forts" which are constructed if a unit has spent enough time fortified on a tile (think reverse pillaging). Forts also operate as extractors, so it's a good idea to have a military out on the map instead of stuck in your base. Forts are also useful if you want to siege a city because they come with a militia unit as well as providing a ranged ballista shot to the unit controlling the Fort.