Thanks for the response.
I don't think age is the problem--none of them are over 40. No, anyone 14 or older is moving as if through water. Extremely weird. I tried shutting all other windows. I tried restarting the game, then i tried restarting my computer, but nothing seems to help.

I found the directions for backing up a saved game. I think I'll try starting a new game and see if the problem persists. Nothing like this ever happened in VV2.