Civs for Boom + Adapting

Hi All,

I'm a new player who's mostly been playing lots of early cavalry aggression with Magyars, and it's time for me to start expanding my strategy/playstyle. I think that it would be informative to play a more boom-and-adapt playstyle next, as that would force me out of my comfort zone and essentially be the exact opposite of what I've been practicing so far.

Byzantines certainly come to mind as a good choice for this with their cheap trash and high building HP facilitating defensive play, but I'm wondering if there are other good adaptation/generalist civs that I should look into? I know this is kind of the Chinese's calling card but I hover between 1000-1100 ELO and their opening scares me. Who else should I be looking into for this? Malians with their cheap buildings?