Terrible Player.

[Tollund]

The reason you can't afford mages is likely because you aren't expanding fast enough, and you aren't expanding fast enough because you are spending 8000 gold on province defense instead of hundreds of troops that can get you more provinces and more gold.

[Joelz]

For newbies playing in EA, I'd suggest taking Abysia, and researching mostly Evocation. You get great battle spells which don't hurt your fire immune troops.
Also, most of your infantry is heavily armored, so they can take arrow fire, which is particularly bothersome in EA.