Heya. I use Illustrator from time to time mainly because I don't know how to use the Photoshop path tools very well...I really should learn. I think for most reasonable tasks the PS tools should hold up...but for something like Argria I have a hard time imagining doing that in PS instead of Illustrator, though I imagine it could be done. I'll have to count the buildings in that map someday. I expect there are 1,000+ and many times that number of individual shapes were used to make them, using the Pathfinding tool to merge, cut, etc. to get the final building shapes. I don't use Illustrator all that much but have mocked up, for instance, In Design templates using it and have used it for creating business cards and so on.

I'll definitely get to the textures and shadows in the tutorial. Just got to find some time! Little swamped with end-of-month work stuff and have been battling a sinus infection. Hopefully it won't be too disconcerting with me posting bits and pieces as I get the time and inclination.
M