I'm not going to argue that there aren't downsides. Just saying that someone with no real experience in the game, and no plan to win a war, can effectively ruin almost anyone's chances of victory, just by dragging them into a war. They force you to invade them, and your forces succumb to disease in just a couple of months. Basically everything you send is going to die, so if they have any real fight in them at all, you're going to have to sacrifice things that are irreplaceable, perhaps thugs and high level mages that you would absolutely not expect to lose ordinarily, if you were winning the war.
It's a bit off topic, but meh.
I like the auto-summoning pretenders, though I think the Mother of Monsters could maybe use a higher spawn rate, and maybe the Lord/Lady of Serpents could be toned down slightly.