I've gotten it to work with sound. In fact, I'm playing it right now with only a minor problem, which is why I'm here...
But first, it sounds like people get hung up on the install. So did I. So I just copied the entire CD to my \imperium directory. Then I fired up DOSBox, ran the IG1 install.exe to set up my sound, and it worked rather well. I'm not using the patched version. DOSBox is running on XP.
Here is my dosbox.conf:
(It's pretty much the default except I turned off all sound cards except SB... My dad paid $200CDN for my Soundblaster Pro back in the day! Ah, sweet, overpriced, memories.)
[sdl]
fullscreen=false
fulldouble=false
fullfixed=false
fullwidth=0
fullheight=0
output=surface
hwscale=1.00
autolock=true
sensitivity=100
waitonerror=true
[dosbox]
language=
machine=vga
memsize=16
[render]
frameskip=0
snapdir=snaps
aspect=false
scaler=normal2x
[cpu]
core=normal
cycles=2500
cycleup=500
cycledown=20
[mixer]
nosound=false
rate=22050
blocksize=2048
wavedir=waves
[midi]
mpu401=true
device=default
config=
[sblaster]
sblaster=true
base=220
irq=7
dma=1
sbrate=22050
# Richard - adlib used to be false
adlib=false
adlibrate=22050
adlibmode=adlib
cms=false
cmsrate=22050
[gus]
gus=false
rate=22050
base=240
irq1=5
irq2=5
dma1=3
dma2=3
ultradir=C:\ULTRASND
[speaker]
pcspeaker=true
pcrate=22050
# Richard - tandy and disney used to be true
tandy=false
tandyrate=22050
disney=false
[bios]
# Nothing to setup yet!
[dos]
xms=true
ems=true
[modem]
modem=true
comport=2
listenport=23
[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
mount D D:\
Here's my command line: "C:\Program Files\DOSBox-0.61\dosbox.exe" g:\imperium\imperium.exe -conf g:\imperium\dosbox.conf
Lemme know if this helps.