Hi there, this was very helpful, but it seems my problems have gone full circle.
I am using an older laptop with Windows 7 [sigh], and Civ4 vanilla. I do not have the expansions. I installed civ4 and had issues right away [because it was ver1.09], and the online solutions seemed to say get 1.74. My issue with installing 1.74 was I didnt have 1.61.
When I first attempted to run 1.09, after telling me this had known compatibility issues, the game would attempt to load and at "init engine" I would get an error about rendering graphics or so, with a bunch of parameters afterwards. It then shuts down
Since 1.74, I do not get the compatibility issues message, but the engine still will not initialize. I am sooo dissapointed and craving civ4, someone please help.