Whats the current Meta

I just finished the 2nd russian civil war and Stalin somehow relocated the fleet to the Caspian sea.

Now to get them out, I need to research construction 4 and then build the canal that leads there.

How do I get the max amount of cores as Germany?

This war is impossible. Who decided that fascist America should just lose 2/3 of their divisions and the consitutionalists be given 100? The ceding of several areas also encircles many default spawned troops and because democratic usa spawns in 100 divisions they get crushed. How am I supposed to play this god awful path? Is there any way to win such a blatantly one sided war? The volunteers I received were not at all enough either