I love the background story and setup here. As, it is not actually that far fetched on paper.
A bunch of historically powerful families fighting over "Think-Tank Money." Which is a mix of mostly government and some private funding. That would make sense, and believable even in the modern era. Heck if Bloomberg or Wall Street Journal ran an article about RAND was paying for and supporting a Tactical Medieval Fighting MMO to do tactics and strategy simulation. I doubt many people would laugh, in fact I am sure many pundits would applaud it as a blending of gaming technology and military strategy.