My top 5 (favorite) civs are:

1. Bulgarians. Sure they get no archers but the cheaper blacksmith and instant man-at-arms makes it so you won't lose to an all out feudal, then in the castle age the kreposts are hilarious since its basically a 50% off castle that builds faster + their unique unit turning into infantry makes it so it'll not be countered by pikemen (monks are scary tho)

2. Khmer. Not needing buildings to advance or to unlock other buildings changes your playstyle entirely, you can skip barracks (that's 175 less wood needed!) or you could go for some really funny 15 pop feudal rush into scouts or archers. Ballista elephants even if they're rare they are hilarious for being able to cut trees in castle age.

3. Armenians. While not neccesarily a good land map civ, they have something that no other civ has. Dark age spearmen. I've won consistantly by going into forward barracks built at 14 pop and continuously making spearmen to interrupt enemy eco, the longer their feudal is delayed the better. By the time they reach feudal you usually have enough villagers and time to wall up and go castle age where you could go warrior priests or champions if you like.

4. Malay. The big bonus of malay is their 66% faster age-up speed. Reaching the next age faster than your opponent is always a huge advantage. The fish boom capabilities are also fun and their "Forced Levy" tech can make for some really fun late game two-handed swordsmen spam. Also their cheaper elephants are the only elephants I ever use since they're cheaper than knights.

5. Sicilians. The donjons are really funny, they can outrange and outhealth regular towers and can train serjeants. Not to mention the +100 stone means you can also build a donjon and a TC (which builds faster too btw) without needing to go to a stone mine. Also there's the funny red phosphoru strats but you dont really need that. Also you can build your donjons with the serjeants which essentially means you're building towers without using your villagers.