Victories play a big part in your score, I got some pretty crappy rating in Space Race because my territory is smaller, domination and conquest gave me a lot more points, 30k easy on Noble. Maybe you're playing settler or something and just get bad scores when all the points are tallied up. If your trouble was actually winning then Wonder whore or you're not taking advantage of your traits. Expand faster then you would with other leaders, don't be afraid to war if your opponent is weak. Wonders to shoot for are the Oracle, Pyramids, (if you can't get both I say Pyramids plus building both hurt city expansion.), Great Library is useful which can be super built by the great engineer your getting at this time, then a bunch of essentially useless wonders come along for very special circumstances, Taj Mahal is another good one as you don't have to sacrifice two great people for it. The final one to get is the Pentagon since it allows a second upgrade in every city with a barracks. Space Elevator if you're playing space race is a no brainer.