The 18xx craze never ends, and after seeing railway empire building games taking place in Cyprus or even the asteroid belt we now have a game that doesn’t even have trains but is – all things considered – a fully-fledged 1830 variant. ‘Poseidon”s design goal was to reduce complexity and playing time in contrast to the original game, and also reduce some of the cutthroat tactics that turns off so many inexperienced players once they have been dumped the worst and unprofitable line through stock market machinations.
In fact the stock market part of the game has been reduced to it’s bare bones because – let’s face it – there really was no stock market in Ancient Greece. Players try to create trading routes instead of railway lines, with the added bonus that it is possible to travel through a blocked tile. Technological competition comes in the guise of better galleys and triremes. All in all Poseidon manages to make the 18xx system relatively accessible to newcomers, but it is still not a completely easy nor quick game. As a good entry game into the 18xx universe it is highly recommended, though.