You know, I'm actually fine with triremes.
Being used by less developed states.
Who only sail calm coastal waters or wide rivers.
And are stuck at bronze age tech levels*
The Realm using them? A nation surrounded on all sides by ocean, and having need to project power across those oceans? A nation that is decidedly not bronze age or even iron age in tech level?
It doesn't make any sense at all for them to use triremes.
*Yes, while triremes were still used at iron-age tech levels, they shouldn't really be in Creation. Why? Because the technology for better ships has already been invented and spread over the world. You really should only be stuck with triremes if your technology slid that far back.
Okay, maybe you can have some triremes sail from Nexus, if you really want to play up their whole "slave labor". But actually...triremes are really expensive, comparatively. All those slaves to row them (or paid workers, gods forbid) cost money either way.
Actually...if you want rudder-driven ships that badly, just use
Longships. Those are actually capable of going across rough oceans and they're fast enough to serve as "interceptors" and they're a well-developed design that could easily be left over from more advanced times.
Mind you, at least we can find galley in general until far into the medieval period. Oar power was pretty good after all.
But only as a supplemental power, and definetly
not with the deck plan of a "
trireme". There's medieval galleys and
Birlinns which had enough freeboard to actually go through rough seas, and you can even find some
18th-century designs (british, no less) that still had oars.
Just...don't use the word trireme all over the place. It evokes entirely the wrong image.
