I think most of you are underestimating Autocracy here. Specifically the yield bonus.
+1 to every yield is very significant when you're on 3-4 cities, half of which are brand new and undeveloped. I build the government building asap so it very soon becomes +2 to every yield either in the same city or spread between my capital and second city (I like the build the plaza there). Once I switch to a different government the legacy card remains one of the better cards available to me for quite a while, which says a lot.
In some games I go Oligarchy first, obviously when I'm having an early war. Also if I'm aiming for a domination victory I will want the oligarchic legacy card and might not use Autocracy at all, but I think that's the only case.
Classical Republic is great but it's bonuses aren't useful enough at the time I get Political Philosophy because my cities aren't developed enough yet and I'm expanding. Typically I have Autocracy at first, get the legacy card and then eventually switch to Classical Republic towards the end of the classical era.
The way I see it, Autocracy isn't about the wonder bonus -- I mostly ignore it or see it as gravy if I happen to build an early wonder (mostly I don't except for the Pyramids if I can).
This nails it. I think it's also players misreading the bonuses and thinking it's just about wonders.
This guy gets it.
Autocracy is generally my first choice if I have no iron. (in some cases if I have to war with spears are some crap). Classical Republic doesn't do anything until you build some districts and the amenities aren't important either at this point since you should be building out and districts are secondary. +1 to each yield is also a significant chunk early game. There are also some wonders like Colosseum which are good to build.
I usually switch into Classical Republic to grab the legacy card. By that time I'll have some districts up.
If you don't find Autocracy useful, chances are you are too slow to Political Philosophy.
This guy always gets it, of course! Particularly like the observation about Autocracy being more relevant if you get to PP faster - spot on.
I’m just parroting better players, but an additional advantage of Autocracy is the card spread - Diplomacy Cards are very weak early, so swapping a Diplo Card for more useful Military Card is awesome. I nearly always want to slot Conscription (although, sometimes not if my Gold is Super good), so Oligarch usually loses its one Military Slot to that, and CR loses its Wild Card slot.
But yeah, the extra yields are awesome (particularly if you can’t find City States handily) and the Wonder Bonus is very handy when you’re chopping in stuff.
I will often swap out of Autocracy just before completing my T1 Gov Plaza building, to get Oligarchy’s Combat Card (which I don’t really need, but I just find cool) or CR’s Happy and Houses Card (more useful), but increasingly I don’t think it really matters and I’m better just building my T1 building ASAP and staying in Autocracy until I get to a T2 Government.
While we’re on this topic, I do think Monarchy is a bit underrated. It’s got a good card split, I’m often building walls with limes so the legacy bonus isn’t totally useful, you can get to Monarchy faster than the other two T2 Govs, and the Divine Right Civic has some key policy cards. Not saying Monarchy is optimal, but it does have some good points.
