I need a template on which to add other things
Not sure of the precision you need, but one possible solution:
That's a screenshot from the 90s PC version of Axis and Aliies Iron. I'm sure google would be happy to provide you with download sites. Once you have the game you can zoom around the map and take screenshots as you'd like and fit them together in any configuration you want. Graphically edit out troops images and territory names, then reapply them in the configurations you want.
The images you'd end up with won't be as precise as your examples, but they'd have the advantage of having a uniform look and feel for the entire world.
if anyone knows of a good way to make/update map markers for troop deployments,
that would be extremely helpful as well (currently using the tortoise-speed "ms paint
I do most of my graphic work in windows paintbrush. Gimp, photoshop and other tools have gradients and shading features that it lacks, but for basic editing I find that it's generally much faster because it has so much less overhead.
If you do the above, just copy the raw unit images and copy and paste them onto your maps as you please. The game also had a rather nice troop movement arrow you could probably use too.
more zoom capacity/detail/regions;
The Axis & Allies maps aren't terribly precise, but you could do the same basic thing with other maps. If you want a uniform look at various zoom levels, you're probably going to need to graphically edit a single map to remove names and features, do the zooming yourself and reapply them.