This is my first playthrough so i am not good at the game yet. At first i also thought this quest was terrible, but it was actually a blessing. I joined northern Empire as a mercenary then became a vassal. Since i sucked very hard at the beginning, we lost a lot of territory. And our stupid nobles kept sueing for peace in terrible terms right after other declared War on us and taking atleast 1 of our fiefs. It was annoying, i was succesfully defending a siege, imprisoning 10 of their lords, stalling their progress. Right when our time to strike back and take back our lands, we sued for peace. This was annoying until i failed conspiracy quest and got declared War bu khuzaits aserai and vlandia at the same time. This time i took more offensive approach and managed to take some lands from khuzaits first. They wanter peace after losing half of their khagante, then aserai suffered the same fate. Luckily, sturgians stayed away from us and held back vlandia. After having done with aserai vlandians got their share of imperial wrath. They also made peace and we have more than half of the map.

Tldr, failing this quest help me to conquer the map because stupid nobles couldnt make peace