I deleted all the files again, those extracted from the archive and the save folder with the profile, then I put the default game settings back into the AMD program and it seems to work again.Yes, it does seem absurd.
Since this is the only game that this is happening for you and it seems you are the only one who is having the problem, it sounds like it is a computer setting specifically causing the problem on your computer. And it happened about three updates ago (whatever you time that as - if you download monthly, or weekly, or a mixture, or whatever) --- so something that happened on your computer at about that time (either something done during an update or done manually) caused it.
Here are a couple of options:
- Rollback your computer to whatever was the last date that things worked like they should for ToA.
- If you are comfortable with editing your Windows Registry - you could look for all entries in your registry for ToA, delete them and then try playing again.
I don't know which graphics setting conflicted with the game, I don't understand what could have caused this problem for me.
Thank you all for your cooperation.