Gaming question...need help!

[JagFire19]

Hey everyone, I could not find an apporpriate forum to place this under so I chose 'General Chit Chat.' I apologize for this but lets get on to better matters...
I have had the game Age of Empires:The Conquerors Expansion for about 6 months now and have begun to play multiplayer. When I play against one opponent everything is okay. However, the problem arises when I play against multiple players. Once the game setup screen appears, where everyone who is playing the game decides what map, size, level, etc...all of the user names below me disappear and I cannot see their user names. Then once everyone clicks in(thus saying you are satisfied with the game setup),including me,the host launches the game. About a second after this, a screen pops up saying:

Error connecting to player 4-or whichever player I cannot see-(IP Masqeurading systems such as Internet Connection Sharing, NAT, etc...are not yet supported)

Once this happens I am automatically 'clicked out' and so everyone thinks that I stopped the game from loading on purpose. I am not sure what to do...I play the game on zone.com and have contacted their help department and they weren't very cooperative. So I came to a more intellectual group. I understand this problem is confusing, but if someone could help me out I would truely and greatly appreciate this.

[-DaRK-RaiDeR-]

JagFire19,

Have you tried installing the last patch for this game? You can get it from http://www.microsoft.com/games/empires/downloads.htm

Good luck!!!

[JagFire19]

Hey Dark Raider, do you have a patch for the Conquerors Expansion? The one you gave me was for the original version...

I think I have all the patches for the Conquerors Expansion. I'm not sure that's the problem. I think it's something else, not absolutely sure though...

[-DaRK-RaiDeR-]

JagFire19,

Sorry but i can't help you then. The last patch for this game is v1.0c so see if you have it.
I haven't played the game so let's hope someone else answers this thread and help you.

Good luck!!!

[tyger_claw]

The only thing I can think about is maybe a problem with a firewall?
If you are hosting the game, people are connecting to your computer via a com port (whichever the game chooses) and possibly being rejected by the firewall....

Do you have a fw running in the back? What else do you have running (AV, RealPlayer, ...)?

[JagFire19]

You might have a point about that because as of a couple months ago I have given up trying to host a game because of problems arising in that criteria. However, more importantly, I would like to find a solution to this one. Thx about the idea relating to the firewall. I will put some effort and thought into trying to fix the problem via firewall.