ogr8one: Nothing works. We finally gave up
One work around that we're using in our CC is:
This does require you to be in contact with your friends by some other means, eg Skype, chat room, Facebook etc, but if you are, simply set up a normal "open" game, and invite "anyone". Tell your friends what you've set up, and they can search for a game with those parameters. All you have to do is keep removing "random" players, until your 3 friends are all on board.
Slow, and cumbersome, but it does work, and until WGT get their fingers out and sort this problem, it's the only way around it that I'm aware of.
Hope this helps?
Steve