[VedalkenBear]

Point by point.

Yes, the Archbishop is expensive. It takes a skilled player to juggle the death gem income that Ermor starts with. The best time to take out Ermor is, ironically, early.

We can restrict ourselves to talking about 'castle undead', but that is not fair, as your opponent will not be fielding only those troops (unless he micromanages to an alarming degree). Someone mentioned before that even in MP games, Ermor's army is only about 40% 'castle trops'. Therefore, I see no reason to restrict ourselves to 'castle undead'.

Let's talk about the nations in LE, and their Priest availability. The only nations that do not have L2 priests recruitable are, IIRC, Man, Tien Chi (maybe), Caelum, and maybe Patala (Oh, I think Pangaea might be in here too). (I'm sure people will point out if I'm wrong, and where.) Therefore, I am not sure why you focus on the H1 issues.

If 'common answers' don't work, then you really should specify under what conditions they don't work. If by that you mean 'by turn 25 against a 1200-piece undead horde', then you should specify that. The better you define your problem, the better answers we can give.

Yes, 40 H1 Priests are completely useless against nations unless:

1) They use Undead.
2) They want their Dominion in your lands (Temp ones mostly)
3) They use weak demons.
4) They are not mages (which I assume is the case).

and:

5) You don't need to build temples (i.e., you already have enough priests for that).

So, you see, your statement is quite hyperbolic. And I would like to point out again that the vast majority of LE nations (by my reckoning) have access to Holy-2 Priests. Yes, some of them are capital-only. On turn 25, this is not much of an issue.

And Archers are not as useful as they normally are against 'castle undead', true. However, we have the countervailing point that Ermorian armies (especially by turn 25) either are huge OR they have solely 'castle undead'. Not both.

Finally, I would ask again for what nation you are playing (or were playing). Given the diverse nature of the game, what can work for one nation (buying national Holy-3 Priests) won't work for another. So instead of us trying to shoot blind finding answers that might work for your nation, it would be much easier if you tell us your nation so that we can tailor the answers to the specific situation.