Yep, hill cities are good. A good compact empire with emphasis and developing and protecting the land around your cap. Satellite/helper cities on the fringe - on hills - to attract the stacks.
On low levels, as long as you understand basic mechanics, it really doesn't matter. A good UU can help but not necessary really. You can also try unrestricted with a leader like Churchill on the Mali civ so you can get protective Skirms. Skirms also make good choke units. You might even ..oddly...go straight to Archery here and run out 2 or 3 Skirms to choke and worker steal...don't even bother building a worker. Your first warrior can get Woody II-III for worker snipage..and first GG can make him an Axe/medic/choker that can rage on enemy archers in their forest. If you are playing like noble or prince, this can be a good approach.
Church's Charismatic trait is nice in AW too for the extra happiness and faster promos. '
With those choking Skirms, consider promoting a couple along the Guerrilla line. GII gives double movement on hills which can be nice...not to mention the defense factor.
Try to roll a start with a good cottage type bureau cap since primarily your economy will come from that..surrounded by 3 or 4 nearby hill cities eventually close by. Keep in mind that your secondary cities primarily are for drawing enemy units and helping develop cottages for the cap - as well as maybe grabbing any necessary resources. Eventually you will be able to build up and army of melee/cats or Horse Archers to send out to start taking stuff yourself.
Again, keep those secondary cities close and overlapping capital if at all possible relative to being able to settle on hills. Theses cities can be whipped more too for units. You will probably not settle more that 3 or 4 cities and likely at a slower pace as you need to balance economy and defense. In other words, you need some to draw units but until your production increase it is hard to defend all those cities...although a Skirms are really cheap and 2-4 on hill cities.
Take advantage of the layout of land as well around your small empire ..noting choke points and safe zones, if they exist - like the back of your empire facing water such that no threats come in certain directions. As opposed ..say..to being right smack in the middle of the map getting hit from all sounds.
I assume you use BUG or BAT, so I'm not sure what else you would need unless looking for something very different from the vanilla game.
Lastly, we are not familiar with how experienced you are and your comfort level. Monarch level should certainly be doable.
Just remember that the faster you can get out chokers the more time you have to develop your land and prepare.
