Help - Compatabity Issues

Hear me out. I am a twelve (not kidding, BTW no pun intended) year old boy. I like Civilisation IV, V I hear is too dumbed down.

But onto compatability, don't dumb down the technical terms. (I am PC literate, I mean it, I don't mean that I can draw circles in Paint)
My system:
OS: Windows Seven
RAM: 4GB (Civ 1 is perfectly fine here.)
Hard disk: 453GB (^)
Processor: Definitely enough to run several Civ 1s at once.
Video Card: Intel HD something e-rather (Could this be a problem too?)

I know about DOS.
Has any-one run Civilisation 1 on a modern computer with Windows 7, and if so how?
I really want to play this. (I know what I am getting into, a thing with graphics not up to most standards now, and that unit's have no health, just alive or dead)

Don't be afraid to use technical terms!

Just use DOSBox, it's an emulator for DOS. AFAIK, that's the best and maybe only way to run legacy DOS games like Civ I on modern OS. Being 12 is no problem. I started playing Civ when I was about 9, I didn't even know proper English back then, so it was more of a language learning experience than a game before I really got the gist of it.

I have heard of DOSBox, my dad just dissmissed it. He plays Civ too, he started on the first one. So even though I have only played IV I have a good idea of the others:
Civ I: Terrible Graphics, (It is old, so it is forgiven) Nukes cause lots of Global Warming, Diplomats can buy cities, No heath bars, just alive or dead
Civ II: Like IV but with worse graphics and more micromanaging.
Civ III: Introduced Cultural borders. Defense overpowered.
Civ IV: (Obvious)
Civ V: Crap. Dumbed down, only 1 unit per hex, which they made into hexagons. (Neither of us played it)
Civ VI: Really hope it's better than V.

Defence in Civ 3 is underpowered, not overpowered. At least when I used to play it. Own half the world in the Iron Age. The problem with Civ 3 is that you could have a world-spanning empire and only have three productive cities because of the stupid way corruption was handled.

Civ 5 is good. The only problem is time between turns.

Civ 1 for Windows (or Mac OS) has better graphics, same problems with compatibility with new systems. Just use dosbox.

If you want an old but good civ game play Alpha Centauri. It holds up very well for the most part.

Oh boy, I play Civ I for twice your age years! Graphics are a serious matter, especially for a young person, but Civ I offers thrill rather than action. Go kick your father's scores!

I find the game fun, but I can't save it. If I do (try to) save it it says:
"Error writing map file" in one grey thing, and in another it says:
"d:CIVIL0.SVD
Chief Caesar
Romans/1480AD
.... save in progress."

D is because I run the emulator, and it's virtual hard drive is called "DOS-OS".

Then if I push enter it says in a red box now:
"Game NOT saved.
Press key to continue."

Do I need some file in Civilization called "Saves" or something?

What emulator are you running? If it's not DOSBox, I suggest you be a good kid and NOT listen to your father, and just get that, it's free. Start it up, mount your Civ I folder as drive C: (or whatever letter you want) and you should have no problems. The game writes its savefiles in its main folder so it shouldn't matter if you mount it as a different letter the next time you play. If the problem persists, then it's something else.

EDIT: Civ I used to be run from floppy disks and when the save screen appears it asks you for a drive to which to write the file, default being C:. if you accidentally press one of the arrows or a letter key when the save screen appears, you can change the drive, and if that drive doesn't exist, naturally, the game won't be able to write the savefile.

I fixed it, I was using DOSbox. Turned out I made a typo.

Happy conquering then!