You're not losing; being ahead in techs and population is very good. You're only a few percentage points behind on land area, and that's easily fixed. There's room for three more cities right around Moscow.
1: Two spaces north then one west so it's on the hill and will get the whale when culture expands.
2: Two spaces south and one west.
3: Two spaces east and one southeast.
These three cities will have low corruption unlike many of the distant cities on your long narrow island. They'll be very worth it, and will add to your territory score.
Other advice: More galleys! There's a continent with a civ and goody huts within sight to the east. Get there and trade with the civ, pop the huts, and settle cities. Some cities there will be closer to the capital than cities you already have.
Get out of despotism. You've got republic, and you can trade the Ottomans for monarchy.
You're wasting some workers by having them chop jungles by themselves. Have them work together so you actually have a useful square soon.
But overall, things are good. You're not dominating (yet), like you would be on Warlord, but you're still one of the top civs in the game.
i feel bad, since its m first attempt at a higher computer difficulty
but i usually dont go to republic, since i wait for Communism !!! so im not sure if i should change 
