Emperor Difficulty

[AsH2]

knowing map is cruicial for starting build choices.
..
and do not hesitate to reroll map on first turn. weak capital can be challenging and good for learning, but many lost games can take away courage from player. have good map. it helps so much. practically speaking, good map is win right there, from turn one.
..

I rarely have any problems to pick build orders, as I tend to spend some turns moving my settler to a great spot.

 

[Victoria]

It seems this doesn't work so well at Emp or above...!

It does. You need to get a little more confident with the start which is to get at least a couple of cities up pretty early and done form or army. Building districts early apart from the odd one just slows up your empire growth.