Ok, I wouldn't know if this was a common problem, but the first game I tried to run had a lot of problems with the 256 vga palette. Searching on the forum I found that I can add the parameter /g:bios to the command, and that should work.

Add to the FAQ in the readme.txt file

Q: My game's graphics looks strange, what is the suggested solutions?
A: Try /g:bios as a command line parameter, or go the the forums page of dosbox and ask your question here. (www.vogons.org)

I am not 100% sure what the url is here. 😀

-Canderel