If you use the lagabuse bot to host, there can't be any port forwarding problems, since you are only the owner of the game, not the actual host. So technically you are just a player like anyone else, ofc with special priviliges as the owner of the game.
Maybe you were just unlucky, during weekdays daytime there are not so much games. Try another time, like 18:00-22:00 there are much more players by that time interval.