Say you are stuck with age of kings, which are the strongest civs?

So I'm currently working in the middle of nowhere at a type of research base. One of the few games we have here, that everyone can play on their microwave, is aoe2. After not playing it since I was a kiddy, I take part in a LAN every 1/2 weeks with a bunch of the guys here, and I've gotten really into it again. I'm actually interested in playing it well now (I just used cobras as a kid LOL). However, the copy of the game we have here is just the base age of kings game (no conquerors expansion).

Now I really like playing goths since you can just mass huskarks and delete the opposition, but if I lose my castles I'm screwed (can't make huskarls from Barack's as in conquered). Theres also no halbeders - just pikemen; so Frank's seem Hella op. Seems to me age of kings is pretty poorly balanced - at least relative to the conqueres

Anyway, just wanted to ask which civs are the best/weekest in age of kings? Reason I'm asking here is because I can't find any info on tier lists googling around - understandable since the conqueres released just after/ is considered the base game anyway.