So I finally decided to move up to Emperor, and this was the starting location. This was completely randomly generated. I don't think I've ever seen that many cows in one spot.
Too bad that the island I was on wasn't too much bigger than the starting location. By the time I got off the isle I was already 10 techs behind.
How do you find Emperor? I tried it once, moving up from Monarch. About 5 or 6 turns into the game a stack of three Mongol units, including I think a couple of archers, walked past my sole city protected by my sole warrior. I haven't gone back to Emperor since.
The main problem with this one was the size of the island. I was only able to place a few cities (in a CttC spacing) while beelining for map making. It was slow going and I was way behind with almost nowhere to place my new cities on the main continent because the AI had already expanded there. What a waste of such a good starting location.
As to how I find Emperor, I haven't had a chance to play a new game since posting this one.