Who said you have to commit yourself with a whole Ancient Era policy tree? I tested a somewhat out-of-the-box strategy in my last game as Boudicca and it was quite solid: start with Liberty, go straight to the free settler, and then between it and the next policy, get my first Classical Era tech, if I hadn't done it yet. Then just rush Aesthetics while running like crazy for new lands with new luxuries to settle new cities negating the happiness hit, with the settler production bonus from Liberty speeding things up, and then the production bonus from Aesthetics, coupled with some internal trade routes, helping me to build Ceilidh Halls easier when I get the tech, providing the much needed happiness for my now wide empire, which now is good for cultural games because of the amount of possible archaeology stuff.