A friend of mine got me into WBC2 some time ago and we'd like to get to play it together, but we've been having some issues. A few years back we used Gameranger to connect and back then it managed to work, though we didn't even get an option to choose our heroes. We've been trying to connect to one another all day, first through port forwarding, then through Gameranger again, and neither have worked. After forwarding ports and trying to connect via the in-game IP option nothing shows when we enter the host's IP in, and with Gameranger only the host loads in. The other one is stick in a black screen until the game eventually quits of its own accord.

Is there any /reliable/ way to play this game with a friend? We live too far away to just bring a computer to the other's house and use LAN.