Kind of echoing OrionCanning's comments, I think it seems like a fun game but some more interaction between players would, I think, make it more gripping. Maybe some kind of mechanism of holding & trading cards or resources?
As for story, I think a fruitful way of looking at it might be that you don't need to tell a story, but if you can provide interesting prompts or ask compelling questions then you create a framework for the players to imagine their own stories around. And that's something that can be done through pretty small measures - some of your card prompts already do that, like a contry suddenly falling victim to the plague and so on.
Thanks for sharing!