Machaka – a sorcerer’s fevered arachnophobia

[WraithLord]

yeah, all the evoc sounds great in theory. in practice it's bad. Yes, your great mages make up for your crappy units (excluding spiders) when marching with the troops but then your research will take a hit making you seem all the more the inviting target. An ideal start game is made of roughly the same set of objectives:
-> research, most of your early game mage time goes here
-> lands, ideally you should get them with armies/pretender
-> castles

There are some exceptions to that rule but Machaka is not one of them and it has a rough time getting a good start mainly due to it's reputation.