Civ 4 Multiplayer button not responding.

[Makerester111]

Hi,

recently just reinstalled civ 4 after a couple years and trying to play with a friend.
Direct IP times out,
multiplayer online the login button doesn't do anything,
creating an account button doesn't do anything,
read a million posts about firewalls and crap,

not helpful since I don't have a router firewall up, so no portforwarding required,
only have AVAST, not mcafee or anything, avast has NEVER blocked anything in the past, doubht it is now,
and windows firewall is disabled.

civ won't launch without patch, so I tried creating an account in patch 1.62 and 1.74,
neither work non responding button.
realised I wasn't prompted to install gamespy upon disc install,
downloaded it manually,
still no difference.

No idea what the hell I should be doing to get this thing to work.

any help appreciated,

thanks.