Hmm, so for those of you who take Liberty in the late game, what do you do with the free settler? I mean, if you went tradition first, you already have your 3-4 cities with high population and infrastructure all set up by then, so the free settler policy seems pretty useless to me. Unless you take the worker, the production, and the settler, but save the golden age or the great person for later?
Delete the settler.
Tradition > Piety > Liberty/Patronage until Industrial era > Freedom as soon as possible > finish Liberty and Patronage
I plant great prophets until I can start getting Artists. Planted Artists/Prophets really add up when you get the Freedom tree done and the end of the Freedom tree seems to coincide with building of the Louvre and from that point on you are in perma golden age and can usually plant an artist or two during those and still not lose it.