Nice work on a fantastic looking city.
Thank you, kind Sir.
Question if I may what size are these area's?
Now, without even referring to the recent debate about module area sizes (which I found very infomative, BTW, I'll try to contribute some thoughts of my own) I find it vitally important to highlight the scope and importance of certain districts.
Take the Docks section for example. It is a 32x32, yes. While they cover all 32 tiles in the tileset's width, the length takes only about 5-6 tiles starting from the North. Some of the dock elements stretch over to 7, 8 or even 9 tiles Southwards. Why? Because I wanted to show off the scope of the Virmiya Gulf (geographically speaking of my setting), therefore I have filled over 70-80% with stretching water tiles to give that feel of an expanding water South of the docks. Yes, I know tilesets give that generic extension but it didn't feel quite right. The sudden change in lightning (the 'off-limit' areas are significantly darker) imposed a strange contrast that just didn't feel right. That's why I opted for stretching water tiles and put a few occasional ships here and there to give an illusion of constant sea traffic near the docks (lore-wise, Nelveris, the city is one of the major trading hubs in the Carsarate of New Veritum).
To build up on the concept, I have taken some ocean/sea sounds and put them at the very Southern edge of the area with the sound stretching all the way to the most exposed parts of the dock. You won't hear them while traversing through the urban segments (you can see on the screens they are in the background on a higher elevation) but by wandering about the docks, the faint sounds of the wild water can be heard. These sounds are on a constant loop and include two versions - Day and Night. At Day, the sound is pretty faint and I found it disruptive when paired with the rest of the Docks ambience sounds therefore left it quiet and subtle. The Night version has increased volume and it feels only natural, given how the docks themselves are rid of any major traffic that happens there during the day. Merchants, sailors, soldiers, armies, wanderers, workers, labourers, engineers, officers, diplomats, smugglers and what have you are gone by night.
For the Market area I started at first with a 20x20 area. But it literally felt unnecessarily large. Given also how many placeables are present (all the stalls, statues, food baskets, etc.), the number of NPCs present (with a very modest schedule but enough to give it life) and the exhausting work I put into creating sound ambience (ie. there were NUMEROUS sounds within the area of the stalls; butchers cutting meat, wooden planks being lifted and put down, groans, laughs, whinings, conversations, groups applauding, general populace and that one general sound on a loop that was to create this striking ambience of a busy square) - it just slowed performance by a little too much for comfortable use. After all, what I wanted to highlight is the market itself and the Bank of Nelveris (the big Romanesque temple above the Market area).
The idea at the beginning was to use a general 'city crowd' looping sound that came from the centre of the Market area and extended onto the outer edges of the same toolset area. The result was that I didn't need it to be this big, especially at the cost of performance. A small little trick I applied (taken actually from one of the sound design tutorials on the New Vault, really helpful stuff) was to put that looping sound at the edges of SURROUNDING areas in the toolset so that there was a clear audio clue that you were heading towards one of the busiest parts of the city. Of course, the sound itself had to be quiet enough as to be subtle and give clues rather than force the ambience.
The last kind of features district you can see on the screenshot (castle on the elevation, group of soldiers, the altar with the two statues) is the House of Vorius. Even that only ended up about 12x20. The difference in shape is because the House of Vorius has this sort of this large balcony extension to their mansion that gives somewhat an overview of the city. For that purpose, I literally just filled it with the Buildings tile and being 2 elevations lower - it just created this sort of indistinguishable mess of an urban space.
In general, I try only do largest areas for the outmost exterior parts of the town. My city gate area is 12x32 with the longer bit extending the Imperial Road because the revelation of arriving at the place should be delivered in a subtle manner. I don't find the (main) city gates suddenly popping up after the loading screen that immersive.
I am by no means a professional or even experienced builder, although I did work with it for so many years. Except I think now it's time to share a little bit more with the community rather than nothing. '>
Sorry for the long post, folks. Had to.