I’m always impressed when I come across simple tools that Gamemasters can use to rapidly generate content. watabou’s incredible Medieval Fantasy City Generator seems to be exactly that.
A time sink of possibility, messing with the options in style and layout means that you can tweak features of the output and find your favoured combination. For Ambria, I have Coast turned off (Layout > Coast) and everything else turned on, unless it’s a small settlement, like this one, where I also turned off Citadel (Layout > Citadel).
My output uses Style > Palette > Black & White with Watercolours switched on. Annotations > Small plus Wards. I also set Towers > Square and Buildings > Simple.
You could equally turn off the Watercolours and Wards, then do a little colouring of your own – adding labels by hands or in a package like Photoshop (or even something online suitable for quick annotations of imagery).
Mapping the exported image to the location, use the wards as both store and accommodation, like Yndaros. Craftspeople, for example, will usually live above or behind their shopfront.
Oh and give the Warp function a try. Seriously, I have lost a couple of hours already just generating towns and then warping them in myriad directions.
Very nice tool – worthy of a donation for the effort.