CIV3 Conquets and Vista64

[altcon]

So after having a bad gaming experience in Vista and reading the endless reviews and posts suggesting otherwise, I thought I might be missing something.
So I checked what was wrong with my system, and I found that my beloved Kaspersky AV was botching my Vista experience. I promptly removed it ,installed AVG (according to recommendations I found online) and ever since I've been using my Vista setup.
Oh wait that's OT.
And here we meet my discussion topic.I reloaded my CIV3 Conquests (which I bought a month ago on Steam after losing the original a LONG time ago), and found it doesn't work. I contacted 2KGames

"Hello,
On the 13th of august 2007, I purchased Civ3 complete through my Steam account.
I have since switched to Vista64 from XP64.
My CIV3 Conquests game fails to launch, it stops working.
I have tried setting the compatibility mode to XP SP2,
to run as admin and to run at 640*480. None of these solutions worked,
I also tried the solution listed HERE.
Nothing helped.
Now since you still make a profit selling this game, I ask that You also provide the support for it.
It is conspicuously absent from your support site.
I am awaiting a solution or a refund."

Very quickly I got this reply:

"Hello there,
Sorry but the game is not compatible with Vista as the game was not designed to run on a Vista operating system.
If the game is running on a non supported system then the game is not supported.
The only thing that we can suggest that you try is running the game in compatibility mode.
Try running it in Compatibility Mode:
Right click on the shortcut icon on your desktop > Properties > Compatibility > Tick the “Run application in compatibility mode” box and try it in Windows 2000, then 98/ME, then 95."

I tried all the possible modes - nothing works, it just stops responding immediately and Vista lets you know.
I'm fishing for ideas, anybody got a workaround?

 

[LstBrunnenG]

Run as administrator?

 

[DeaconFrost]

It's also very possible that the game just won't work under Vista. I bought the History Channel Civil War shooter, and could not get it anywhere near close to stable under Vista. Their support team pretty much said the same thing, although they promised a patch soon to make it work under Vista. Not surprisingly, it's been 6 months since that e-mail, and no patch has been announced.