I totally agree with the pretty and uber-civilized thing, when I first started the map it was nothing but huts and since that doesn't really lend itself to anything very striking from a visual point I started decorating instead of designing. Once I started throwing in bells and whistles I couldn't stop and my Nordic fjord evolved into something more like a Mediterranean bay. I even spent 4 nights researching medieval occupations (I have a super huge list now) so that I could put in as many different things as possible and once each occupation had it's own building I had forgot to put in housing so I went back and ripped out a bunch of stuff...live and learn. Guess I need to get myself a copy of the DM guide so it can tell me exactly how many cobblers and weavers that a city of X size needs instead of just using my experience with city-building games and my intuition.

Redstar, the buildings are all just various layer styles: pattern overlays, color overlays, bevel/emboss, etc. I'll be posting these styles for all of the Photoshop users to use, probably later tonight once I get em all labeled correctly, as well as the brushes I've created for the buildings and stuff. That's what I was doing last night instead of mapping. These will be over in the mapping elements subforum.