Love the colors, although I try for a bit more realism in my pieces ^.^ Your maps are really unique and those colors do help the eye separate the districts. You should check out GIMP - it's a free alternative to Photoshop; Inkscape is the free alternative to Illustrator. I haven't used GIMP much but there are some excellent tutorials available both here and around the 'net. When you do rework this, you might want to consider roughening up the edges of forests and coastlines, unless you're going for a smoother look - it's up to you really ^.^ The one thing I'd definitely fix is the ocean on the world map - it's pretty distracting from the landmasses, which are great by the way. The background/border element on the world map is also a bit overwhelming - the orange is fine, since it contrasts the oceans' blue, but you might want to dial it down and possible blur the cloudy affect a bit more to lighten it all up. Another option would be to use a color in the same color family as the ocean color, but not a blue - that way the border would stand out but not overwhelm anything.

Great job, though - I love the world map (those coat-of-arms images do wonders), and they're all easy to read which is great. Keep it up ^.^ Can't wait to see this re-worked.