Having some trouble keeping up

Someone tell me what I'm doing wrong. I'm playing with all the AI's set to "intelligent," and from very early on in the game, I am falling way behind in all categories. The only thing I can remotely keep up in is population. I aggressively colonize, and as a consequence I'm always far behind in military in the early game. The worst though is influence. I always play a "good" civilization, so my diplomatic terms are good. An embassy is one of the first things I build on any planet. I have starbases galore. But through it all, I am always WAY behind in influence.

A couple of other stats about my general civ:

I play either Federalists or (nowdays) Universalists.
I have green thumb (bonus planet quality), creativity (don't really know what that does exactly), and bonus to economics.
I usually research the more "social" techs first, getting the bonuses to first production, then economy, then morale, research, and trade.
I keep my tax rate at 33%
I keep my spending ratios even.
I start my overall spending at 100% to maximize early colony ship production, then I cut it to the highest value possible in which I still have a profit coming in.

Overall, I'm pretty decent at the game, but I don't fare well until the mid- to late- game. The simple fact that I lag way behind, consistently, in all the stats, and especially influence, makes the early-game just massively difficult for me. Any advice is appreciated.
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