Tall Science, and maybe heavy Faith: Which civ to play?

I'm only an occasional player. I play at Prince, though sometimes I move up to King if I play a few games within the same month. Even when I plan other victories, I usually end up going for Diplo in the end, because it's achievable in fewer hours of game play. I've never won by Science. I'd like to, at least once before I get Civ VI.

I'm tired of Venice. It suits my disinclination for games that take 30 hours. But because of that, I've played it too much. So aside from Venice, what are 2 or 3 civs for tall sicence with emphasis on religion and what are 2 or 3 civs for tall science without caring much about religion?

Also, unrelated, but how do people thrive without taking the Honor opener before moving on to other policies? Is it that on Deity and Immortal the other civs take care of the barbarians for you? If I don't want my first few units to spend all their time healing and sometimes being killed, I need that CS buff against barbarians, even if it didn't provide the nice culture.

Try Ethiopia.

Aztecs have new water mill
Inca can use religion well and sometime have good land for growing tall.
But my favourite tall and religios is Maya

And yeah, on Prince and lower difficulty you need to clean the barbarians yourself. So Aztec and Inca and Maya are all great for this.

Thanks. One of the reasons I figured I'm bad at Civ V (I played many more games of I, II, and SMAC than III, IV, or V) is the guides all say to start with Liberty or Tradition and I always regret it if I do.

or if you have the DLC "Babylon" you could use those bowmen quite late, since they are just a little lower Hit-Strength than the Composites, and those walls are perfect for turtling.

Good Luck in any case.

P.S. I agree with the other choices above also for stated reasons above.

CBE

Some civs are better than other at science with or without religion. If you are going to play science then you need to play tall.

With Religion:
- Maya. clearly. One of the earliest religion founder while able to create nice science the first academy + UB.
- Ethiopia. (I agree with Sugar daddy, here)

Without religion:
- korea.
- Babylon.
Both are absolute monsters.

I also heard that Incas are good at getting tall. But I know not well this civ.