The problem I'm having is that my Civ 4 doesn't start up after I have patched it to 1.7.4 and I have no idea why. I get no error message when this happens, it just doesn't load up at all. Any help will be greatful.

:band: Welcome to CFC :band:
please open your civilizationIV.ini and set everything with log in its name to 1, then start the game when it does not start please zip everything in your my games/Sid Meier's Civilization 4/logs directory and upload it here :)
Before that I would try reapplying the 1.74 patch, you can download it from here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=6183) if you have not done already. Also you need the newest DirectX9c in any case, which you can get from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=cb7397f3-0949-487b-9247-8fee451bf952&DisplayLang=en).