A potential suggestion, yes.
Basically, I would use icons for the cities. The bird-eyes look very nice, but they suggest a certain scale... a lot smaller than you want to have. Icons are scale-neutral.

I would suggest a simple 2-D silhoutte style, as used in the classic 17th century maps. I used such a style in my Elmsriggen map. Or you can go for something more elaborate... a wonderful example was used by Cereth in the Xendria map. With the second style, you should adapt your other icons though.

Now if you still want to have the bird-eye-view of your major cities: you could make little sideline maps for that, as in the Joan Blaeu map of the Duchies of Slesvig and Holstein.