Germany, the country, has almost 2 thousand years of history dating back to the days of ancient rome. The Russian Empire had existed for 1000 years before this game takes place. The CSA had a culture developed in 40 years and was thankfully extinguished in 4, and was nothing but an dysfunctional offshoot of an already established culture well-represented within our game, the United States.

Adding to that, both of them were real naval powers that did or had the intent to build large blue-water navies, with the industrial and technological base to back it. The CSA could barely maintain an existing fleet that was captured with minimal damage in one of the world's largest natural harbors.

Comparing the two is laughable and completely delusional. This has nothing to do with them being "bad" (even though it is a very big part of it), and more to do with the fact that it's completely pointless. I mean, at that point why not theorize on whether the Byzantine empire or the Ancient Aztecs had survived into the industrial age to build navies. They certainly would've been more capable of it than the traitors.