I’ve played Sankoré 6 times now (at least once at each player count) and I feel like it’s been just enough plays to remove the rose-colored glasses I get with any new game, but not nearly enough to have the strategy all figured out. In fact, it took 4 plays just to get the rules right. I suspect this is a “me problem”, however.
For context, I enjoy heavier, thinky games like Brass or even Root. I’m not quick when it comes to honing in on a winning strategy and executing, but I can usually develop some vision for it. However, there’s something different about Sankoré. After one play, I had no idea what just happened. My brilliant little students were taking their classes and working their way through my school’s upper-level courses, making me proud. And then the next thing I knew, I was firmly in last place with a bunch of worthless prestige. Whaaat? Look, I’m no genius (like my students) but I’m not an idiot.
In case you’re not familiar with how the scoring in Sankoré works, whoever has the highest prestige value at the end wins. Seems simple? Not that simple. Each prestige token has an inherent value of 0. In order to give value to them, you need books. You earn and spend books of 4 different disciplines through the course of the game. When a book is spent (through various actions), it goes into the communal library. There are 3 shelves and each shelf is appraised separately. The most prevalent books in a row give a value of 2 to the matching prestige token. The second most gives a value of 1. You might have 10 purple prestige tokens, but if there are hardly any purple books in the library, you’ve got a handful of fool’s gold. And what does all this actually mean? That the true game is the library board. You can have the most brilliant students in the world, but if it’s been deemed a worthless discipline, ain’t nobody gonna care.
This is what keeps bringing me back to Sankoré. You can go through the paces of worker-placement and area control on the main board, but unless you’re intentionally manipulating that library board with your books, you’re not actually playing. Figuring out how to manipulate it is the most interesting and difficult piece. It always needs to be in the forefront of your mind or someone is going to slip their books in and leave you with nothing. It’s very possible for someone to have double the prestige you have in the end if you’re not careful. This brings me to an important point: this game is best enjoyed with an experienced group. Or ideally, repeat plays with the same group. It’s quite difficult to understand how it all fits together until you’re at the end of the game, with 20/20 hindsight. It probably won’t feel that great after one play, especially if anyone else has experience. Audacious? Maybe, but I enjoy it. Your mileage may vary.
Perhaps the actions on the main board are a bit divorced from the scoring game. I don’t think the game would be nearly as interesting or fun without it, however. There is a satisfying resource loop of needing gold to get salt to get books to get gold. You can get a nice engine going with this, but to what end? Is it just complex for complexities sake? The game designers decided just getting that engine going is not enough. You need to point it towards something. Use it to make sure you boost the specific discipline you need to succeed. The game within the game 🤯
A few quick pros and cons if you’re on the fence:
Pros:
–Beautiful artwork and components- It’s Ian O’Toole. Need I say more?
–Length- One of my favorite aspects of the game is how quick it feels. It took almost the same amount of time (around 2-2.5hrs) for 2,3, and 4 players. Solo is even faster. I love that adding more players does not dramatically increase the playtime. And you’re pretty engaged in others’ turns thanks to the action control piece. Very few heavy games do that.
–Solo mode- Stellar. I hate manipulating complicated solo bots and this one is so simple. When taking the Solo AI’s turn, it’s incredibly quick so you can get back to your turn even faster. The difficulty varies from “Easy” to “Very Hard”. The designers really knocked it out of the park with this one.
Cons:
–Final scores themselves- can be wildly different within the same game which could potentially lead to some bad feelings
–Needs to be played repeatedly to even begin to grasp
–Sub mechanics can feel removed from the goal, particularly in the first few games
TLDR: Because it takes a fair number of plays to grasp, you want to be ready. The theme tie-in isn’t flawless, but it doesn’t bother me. If you’re along for the ride, there’s a lot for you to bite into and you’ll have a really fun game to enjoy solo and/or with friends.
Beau 