Similarly, numpad use is weird in Romance of Three Kingdoms II.
(I am using DosBox 0.58, but the problem seems to still be there is the current CVS (Oct 2, 2003))

RTK2 normally wants the NumLock to be ON; it also accepts commands from the number keys in the 88-key portion of the keyboard. That is the only way to play this game- don't use the numpad (the pain comes only in hex-war mode when the numpad keys become analogus to the movement of units on the map... in other words, it's REALLY useful, but not essential to playing the game). So to play this game, leave numlock off and don't fiddle with it, ever.

If NumLock is ON when you start the game, none of the number keys will work in the hex war mode. That might be fine, you say- just don't use the NumLock at all... but that's easily a bug that could be fixed, no? Similarly, toggling NumLock anytime during the game disables the regular number keys in addition to the NumPad (in other words, everything is b0rked).

You can also avoid war altogether and make this game impossibly hard. Heh...

I had a keyboard problem with "Slicks 'n' Slides", an old top-down micro-machines-like racing game.

It defaults to using the Caps Lock, Shift, Z and X keys for player one by the Caps Locks will only work as a toggle in DOSBOX, rather than a holding-down-or-not. You hold it down to accelerate and it does so but keeps doing it after you let go. When you next tap it, it stops accellerating.