bear in mind that the linked page is EXTREMELY out of date.
However, the list of goals seems to still be somewhat tractable as a list of features toady would like to see implemented; Many of the items in the list have been implemented in the last 2 versions. (talk about these "arcs" was going on waaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the .40d days! Toady has since abandoned that particular track of development style, instead choosing to focus on individual areas and features he most favors at the given moment/development stage.)
While toady probably wont focus exclusively on "a single arc" with each dev cycle period, he still seems to be checking off features and ideas from that list, albeit with revisions and new considerations.
Ultimately, it seems to be his goal that things happening in both fortress and adv modes will have long lasting and immediate consequences in the outside world, which will in turn alter the way other civs interact with either your site, or your player character and their nationality/religion/creed, et al.
How long it takes for him to eventually get there is immaterial. He is making progress, and has set goals to achieve. he will eventually achieve them, as long as he keeps working. Just that this next release does not have the fortress mode AI improvements needed for this kind of consequence. Adv mode, maybe--- but avatars of deities are not explicitly given real weight at this time. Theoretically, in the upcomming release an adventurer could beat the living crap out of an impostor demon, pretending to be an avatar of some deity, and lock them up in a cage in his new throne room as a trophy-- and have fallout consequences in the rest of the world-- so it's slowly getting there.