Kaiserreich: How to win as American Union State?

[Goif!]

Cannot win as them... The commies get Philadelphia, New York City, Detroit and Chicago along with many other smaller towns worth some VPs. They also start off in a great location to push into Washington and I have a terrible area to stage attacks (must push through mountains). They also get much of the industry and manpower (five times more, so about 500k men) even though authoritarians are 40-30 percent more popular than them. They go on to have about 100 divisions however I usually can only get 60 maximum. I wouldn't bother going to war with the CSA because you are given the option, however even if I say no they still declare war.

That being said, does anyone know how I could win?

[100% lob juice]

Race down the industry focuses to get as many free military factories as you can. Try and expand through Texas and focus on the USA first before taking being aggressive towards the CSA.

[RalphRoberts]

In the US civil war, the clear superpower is Jack Reed and his industrial base in the north, in addition to his huge manpower reserves and his army's strength when he does his army focuses.

As Lob said, your first focuses should be all military factory focuses and taking USA and, if possible, PSA.

I would follow these factories by doing army focuses to buff your troops up to help them compete.

CSA has more manpower than yourself, so you cannot probably win a simple war of attrition and need to either fight smarter or dig in along rivers and mountains.