It's not too bad in the case of generals as you only run out of their plotline with about 10 turns to go in an average playthrough. I also found that unless I went hell bent for a particular faction that I tended to mostly deal with their faction arcs in early act 3. The princesses however don't appear till act 2 and are usually already over halfway through act 2. It's extremely short. The main reason I suggest segmentation is that the plot lines seem to mostly last an average play through length (except for the princesses). However if you ever get held up and don't make progress on a map the RPG keeps rolling and you can easily run out of plot early if the enemy gives you really stiff competition. I would rather deal with small segments of no plot if I get held up then have a huge stretch of everything is done towards the end.
