There's a relatively worthless discussion at the RON Heaven Forum about whether SCI1 is a good start and whether CIV1 might be a better choice. I said:

As for researching SCI1... Other than the ol' ancient rush, I can't think of too many times you would NOT ever do it right off the bat. Because you want to fill the most efficient spots first, building a second town is usually limited by FOOD. The rare exception is perhaps getting a 3-wood spot. In playing with the CIV1 start, I've found that I end up waiting on food to build the town and research SCI1 anyway. So why not just research it at the start?

SCI1 is one of the automatic things I do. I have two hotkeyed starts MIL1 and SCI1. Personally, I'll wait for some better eveidence that anything else is worth doing.
posted by Tim at 7:58 PM