Good news everyone! I finally got the game to work as intended, without using "-force-d3d9". Long story short, I used Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), to clear and clean the driver I had, cleaning all the registries and what not. Reinstalled my old driver, and boom! it works! I figured I'd come back and tell you all just in case you ever have someone with a problem like mine. Noting this, I messed up my computer a lot with that program before fixing it, things like being stuck in safemode, black screening, and other times I messed up and had to system restore after fiddling with DDU.

So thank you for your support, I know you all were pulling your hair out trying to solve my problem.

Thank you for all your help, and putting up with my issue. My laptop it 8 years old, it's about time I get it replaced anyway. Thanks again for the continuing support.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but my situation has not changed. I updated the game to the latest patch, and without launch options my game black screened for an hour after the splash screen.

With the launch options "-force-d3d9" It went as normal loading the game, but I can still dig out earth tiles and walls behind the UI. I also noticed I can pick up units, gold, etc. 

Okay, thank you very much. this made me and my niece very happy to hear, since she just loves this dungeon game almost as much as I do.

I'm back, had a nice time picking ticks off me. Anyways, I'm ready to try any solutions you have.

I'm going on a vacation soon, and I will not have access to a computer. I won't be able to reply for about a week or more, but I will respond back to any help you have to offer for my problem. Thank you.

By start parameters you mean set launch options? I double checked that, it was clear, and checked the properties of the launch exe, in the install folder, could not find anything that would change parameters, I think.

I did the above, deleted the Options.txt file, and started the game. I was met with a black screen after the splash screen for 20 minutes, so I killed the application.

Yes, I have those. here is a screen shot.

I was not aware at the time, but when I uninstalled steam, all games I had from steam stopped working/could not install in it's original path. If for future reference, this could be a big pester for those that have to re download every game they had. I am a sad walgleaf now :(

Okay, so I uninstalled WFTO and Steam. I reinstalled them and started the game without launch options. I got a black screen for 15 minutes, so I killed the application. Here is the Outlog for that.

output_log.txt

Next I started the game with the launch options "-force-d3d9". It started up normally as it should, but when I get into a map I can still dig walls and earth tiles behind the UI. Here is the outlog for that.

output_log.txt