Its mostly true. It doesnt have different governments in the sense that you can change governments. Whenever you upgrade your Civic tech though, its usually named different aspects of government, and you are pretty much assumed to have switched to that after you upgrade it. It doesnt really do much, just allows you to have another city and strengthens your borders, etc.
However, seeing as how its an RTS game, there is usually too much crap going on at once for you to even worry about such things as changing your government. Mostly you are always either building stuff with your workers or fighting with your army.