What ever happens to your game, if you are going to continue it or even sart a new game, I hope you will continue writing these Stories here, since they are absolutely fascination and very good to read.
And also those side stories are fascinating, and when I was on your forums the diplomacy was also very great, so I can assure you, putting something like that into the story thread aswell would be very interesting to read.
Your story is one of the examples that show me the outstanding quality of paradox games, and how they are clearly unmatched by anything else.
My salutes!