Hello!

Okay, so I wanna make a map with three major cities on it and a few minor settlements because I'm working on a project and it helps me if I can actually stare at a map that's now only in my head. You'd think that would be enough, but with my goldfish-like focus, everytime I try and zoom in on my head-map I suddenly get porn pop-ups.

What I would really like is to be able to make a map of the whole world and then some closer maps of the cities. Now, I've looked at a few sites that google presented me with and ProFantasy seems to have stuff that'll do what I want and Envato's 3D Map Generator stuff is especially pretty, but they're all paid software.
I'm not adverse to paying for something, but the realist in me figured out that I'll use it exactly once as my idea has all the potential to crash and burn gloriously, so I wanna start out with something free. Or a demo.
I even thought about pulling out SimCity again, but that doesn't give me all the control I want and it'll expect me to achieve goals. However, if there's a videogame out there somewhere that has goodmap making potential, I'd be interested.
SimSeries, Railroad Tycooon and Civ have already been considered... I'll recheck Civ5, to be sure.

Drawing by hand would be possible, but not preferable, because what little skill I posess is not focussed in the art department and I'd like to go all Slartibartfast on the map, seeing what it would do if I move this tree two pixels to the left and what if I make an extra fiddly bit here or there?

So, as Cartographers, what would you say I should have a look at? Present-day visuals would be nice, but I could pass off an Orcish castle for a city icon.
Thanks in advance!