Against all odds, I find myself working on Chapter 2 again, and in the last 2 days I've managed to debug a large part of the war system. Scripts are starting to kick in that have never been activated before. Parties are being managed from spawn to battle, and it is good.
Today for the very first time the AI sieged, stormed and took over a town on its own. The town actually switched factions. I'm so happy I could cry!