Every quest in the civil war questline for me has repeatedly failed to start in this run through.

Basically, I finish a quest, go to progress to the next, such as:

Return from Windhelm with Balgruf's axe, he says talk to Legate (what's his name) I go to speak with him, and he won't acknowledge the quest line and simply has access only to the mundane chit chat options. Several restarts/reloads later, I managed to jag the next sequence/quest start, and go off to Tullius in Solitude, who, in turn sends me to Rikke out in the Pale...however, same issue with her, and after numerous attempts to get her to recognise I'm there for the quest, I'm still getting mundane chit chat options, with no quest start.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to jag the questline sequence to actually work?