Wireless network and Age of Empires Expansion multiplayer

I have just installed a wireless network at home between 2 computers that
both have XP (one has home add and one has Media). I can start the game on
the box with the router and can see the game on the other box with the
wireless netrwork card but when I try to join the game it pauses for 30-40
secs and says 'Unable to join game". I have tried turning off all fire walls
and have entered the necessary ports in the router software that are supposed
to allow the game to work but nothing works. Are there step by step
instructions that I can get to get this to work? So far this is the only
game that I have that is multiplayer capable. Is it a problem that the game
was not written for XP when it came out? I downloaded the 1 meg patch for
the game and installed that but it also did not help.

 

OH, I also wanted to mention that the router and wireless cards are both
DLINK and the only way I got the wireless to work was to hard code IP
addresses on the DLINK software and turn off windows control of the network.