Have not played it. However the author might have put racial units instead of unit stack markers which creates a stack of your race upon start

Yes, that may be the case.
Funny thing is, that also the default Leaders are a different race than the starting city and units.

Sad - his first map was perfect - and really great.

I have it but not played. I think this was the author's idea. But if you want you can take the map from the package and for every starting city set Match race to leader parameter to true. But in case of this map there're territories adapted for the starting cities and if you cahange it's race you can have huge happines penalty.

From what I saw many mapmakers ignore it and if you want to change the race the starting city will not change it.