Online Troubles

[Chronobound]

Hello, I tried playing an online game with my friend but whenever he joined my game or vise-versa, it would say something along the lines of 'a member tried to join but cannot due to an active firewall probably.' My firewall or any antispyware/antivirus is always off when i play online games and the same with my friend. Oddly enough, we can play online when not with each other. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

[Chronobound]

The other day, I reformated my computer, installed civ iv and updated all my drivers. My friend and I could not join each other's games still. The message is a more common time out error. Anyone know of an easy way to solve this?