100k 1840 Conquest (Didn't kick as much emperor butt as I expected to, but meh... I've got a soft spot for everyone's favorite enlightened despot and I'd gotten a little too used to epic speed)
Glad to see you're trying emperor after rocking the Hatty save on immortal!
Now some comments:
1. Looking at your minimap, it is highly likely that you are blocked into a relatively small area by a relatively untrustworthy warmonger. Don't get me wrong, a low city-count cultural victory is definitely possible (and well-suited to Willem's traits), but it might be dangerous here.
2. I agree with moving your settler in the way that you did. You trade a mediocre commerce capital for a very powerful production or GP farm city -- a good trade! However, it does present you with a problem; you will not really be working any commerce-generating tiles (for your fin bonus) until you place your second city (which you already did, but not where I would have...) There are no cities with acess to commerce-heavy lux resource tiles nearby.
2a. This means your second city should have been settled with an eye to financing your empire. Settling the fish city would have / will allow you to work a 3 commerce (pretty good!) tile, and getting pottery would allow you to the work 3 commerce riverside cottage tiles you'd have had (which would have grown). As it stands now, you have the pyramids (a spectacular wonder, as you showed), but you are still 14 turns away from writing, and the ability to employing your representation bonus, as of
950 BC.
City upkeep starts to become very expensive on emperor. You will find that Utrecht (9 tiles from your cap) is about the maximum distance you want to settle your first city from your capital, and that you will have to start planning how you are going to afford your cities more and more.
In my own game, I finished the oracle for metal casting in 950 BC, and had settled my 3rd city (where you put your 2nd).
3. Stonehenge with a creative civ (that doesn't start with mining or mysticism)? True, wonder denial is a powerful tool, yes, it will earn you a nice early GP for settling, and yes, it will kick off your culture nice and early, but it puts you on a rather strange early tech pace given the lack of early commerce I pointed out earlier.
My own initial tech path was AH > Wheel > Mining >
Pottery > Bronze.
Don't be too intimidated by the AI settling pace; this is just a fact of life when it comes to moving up levels. You don't necessarily have to keep up with them -- by staying small, you can accumulate a tech advantage with which you can slaughter your foes.
