got Flight from Lib in my last Emperor game ... i had completely rolled over my continent (consisting of Hammu of Ottoman, Cyrus of Mali, Suiliman of Byzans and Hannibal of England, of which only Suili and Hammu had reasonable land) while the other continent (Napoleon of Zulu, worst contender, Brennus of Khmer and Sitting Bull of Etiophia had on/off warred each other since dawn of time) and the isolated Mansa Musa of Maya (craptastic land, a whole 4 food, two of them seafood deep in the northen icewastes) just went and did nothing ... had the ability to tech Liberalism for nearly 500 years before i did it, mostly because i wanted the civics it had and not because anyone was actually close.
Prime example of a game where the leaders who could be dangerous had crappy land, and the weaker leaders had reasonable/good land (didn't help them that my first two cities had 3 gold mines and a load of FPs between them, and gems popped in my capital the first turn after i built a mine)
capitol with gold in the BFC in an area with lots of rivers, popped silver and gems in the surrounding cities in the classical era, and although the AIs were a mixed bag for a normal game they had really favorable personalities (random personalities on) for tech trading but delayed liberalism until I traded education.
Any time that I feel the stress about possibly missing Liberalism or hear the sound of someone being the first to found Liberalism before me, I console myself with the fact that "I might have only grabbed Fishing with it anyway." 
All of a sudden, my worries go away, a smile appears on my face, and I actually start to feel happy about having missed Liberalism.
I usually suck too much at this game, and usually time is very tight by the time I reach lib. I'm always afraid someone in a faraway land is close too.
