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Well, this is troubling.

My computer objects to Civilization on account of it's a 64-bit computer. I've managed to get around that for some programs using a virtual machine that I've set up with Windows 98, so I tried that here. I get what looks like a pre-title screen:

Advanced Civilization (R)
Version 1.11 Beta 1
Program & Audio-Visual Copyright (C) 1995 by The Avalon Hill Game Company
All Rights Reserved

All of this is plaintext, no images or anything that looks like the screenshots on the download page. Below that is a blinking cursor, but it does not recognize anything I try to type. On one occasion I managed to get it to make objection noises when I tried to type, but I don't recall what I did differently. This sits there until I shut down the virtual machine or ctrl-alt-delete within it.

The next thing I tried was to restart the virtual machine in DOS mode. Once I relearned the commands I had last used some fifteen years ago, I managed to get a slightly more productive result: it would only sit at the aforementioned screen for a few seconds before telling me that it "Could not initialize your mouse."

I then tried finding a DOS prompt within Windows itself, but that exhibits no difference from running by double-clicking within the folder.

So now I'm at a loss for what else to try. Can anyone help me?