Civ4 not launching. PLEASE help.

[|:|Falcon|:|™]

Out of no where (it seems) BTS won't even launch anymore. I can't find any error logs aside from the init.log which says:

[4037.524] ERR: InitWinApp() failed, exiting
[4037.524] ERR: CIV Init FAILED, exiting

I made sure all the logging was enabled, but I get no additional logs created. There is no windows crash event. It just blips up in task manager for a split second and then it's gone.
Apparently this is even effecting C4colonization, which gives the same error in it's init.log

What I've done, without any different results:
- updated to beta video card driver (had latest release driver)
- verified game chache - a few files failed and downloaded
- deleted the BTS binaries and core DLLS, verified cache and redownloaded those things
- tried the steam beta (original) version
- uninstalled and resinstalled
- uninstalled, searched the registry for "civilization iv" and "civ4" and deleted all related entries, ran ccleaner registry cleanup, rebooted, reinstalled

Because there are no logs, I have no idea what is causing this, and I have no idea what else I can try. I love my civ4 (well, all the mods of it I paly, at least). I NEED it working again.

Any ideas?

[|:|Falcon|:|™]

So after a couple windows updates and a few restarts I gave BTS a go and it didn't die right away, but instead stalled after "Init Pythoon."

I finally got it to fully load after enabling administrator mode (because it got reset by the reinstal) and deleting the game cache and setting from My Games folder.

It might have ultimately been a Steam issue, because I did get a steam update prior to it kind of working, but if anyone else ever runs into this then all I can say is "Good luck." This drove me crazy for the better part of a day and I still have no idea what the problem actually was.

Now I gotta redownload all my mods.

[pepoluan]

Hmmm... did you install Steam under C:\Program Files? If so, I think it's a permissions problem. Right-click on the Steam folder, and add "Modify" permission to the "Users" group.

I myself always install Steam (and all my games) *outside* of C:\Program Files. It's just not worth the (possible) headache.

[|:|Falcon|:|™]

Yes, I always give steam it's own root folder, as well as a seperate Games folder for non-steam games. Have had too much hassle with windows trying to "protect" program files.

Like I said, the problem seemed to kind of fix itself. Have had no issues since.