Well to each their own...
It is extremely rare for me not to have 10 hunter spiders by turn 10, unless I lost some in conquests. On top of that I normally would have a solid mass of hoplites, and whatever extra archers I might need...
Sure I may wind up skimping on the mages early, but hunters with earth9 are just too nasty, give them fire4 or nature4 on top of that and... well if I can figure out how to do it I'd imagine most of you can too
Its all about the scales people, oh and using your nice patroling priests to crank your income to insane levels
I find it much easier to get lots of income, rather than production, which is usually the bottleneck for 'knight' production. I never even bother to try and make more than 1 knight a turn with marignon (yeah you can do it... so what), with Machaka I often find myself able to pump out 3 hunters a turn, income willing... And turn 20 isn't late game is it? Well I guess it depends on the game and the players