To me, the Viking ship is the most perfect ship Playmobil has made to date because the dimensions are good and its quite authentic looking.
I'm extremely satisfied with the viking ship, too, and regret not buying another. It had a substantial crew as well and at US$40 was extremely well-priced.
The Roman Galley is neither a total success nor a total failure in my opinion. I'm glad Playmobil didn't have another actual full deck with space for rowers as this would have made the ship too tall, too expensive, and would have added little value, at least to me.
I still would have liked the crew deck--as a kid I hated those "partial implementations". But I agree allocating space would have been difficult, plus the top deck would have had to have been removable to provide access.
Minus the oars, though, I am reasonably satisfied with the trireme--I mean, it is attractive, without any notoriously schlocky elements like that skull mast-head on the new pirate ship and the James Bond style cannons. But the Roman crew disappoints me. It is more like a Roman Starter set (one of every type).
Also, slaves didn't row Roman war galleys.
We can howl this until we're blue in the face but to no avail.
There are four staples of Western culture:
1) Belief in Plato
2) Belief in Jesus
3) Belief in Ninjas
4) Belief in Roman galley slaves.
All spark passions, but people will kill you if you question the ninjas and galley slaves.
