Ready to Get Schooled?
Set in the golden age of Mali under the reign of Mansa Musa, Sankoré: The Pride of Mansa Musa invites players to become masters of schools competing for prestige and influence. Designed by Fabio Lopiano and Mandela Fernández-Grandon, and featuring stunning illustrations by Ian O’Toole, this strategy-heavy board game centers on building an academic legacy in the legendary University of Timbuktu. With dynamic mechanics and a richly woven theme, it promises a thought-provoking journey for gamers who enjoy historical depth and strategic planning.
A Masterclass in Mali Majesty
Sankoré is a love letter to the rich history and culture of Mali during its intellectual and economic zenith. The game excels in its thematic integration, allowing players to teach students in disciplines such as Theology, Law, Mathematics, and Astronomy. The University of Sankoré and the vast manuscript collections are not just backdrops but integral to gameplay, with elements like the Sankoré library determining endgame scoring.
Ian O’Toole’s artwork brings the historical setting to life, with intricate illustrations and a clear, functional graphic design. The components—including vibrant tokens, custom meeples, and the double-sided library board—are of premium quality. However, despite O’Toole’s usually excellent design sensibilities, the board here feels surprisingly busy, detracting from clarity. It’s a striking design but can become overwhelming in practice, particularly when trying to interpret key areas mid-game. That said, the color palette is undeniably gorgeous, making the game a feast for the eyes and an aesthetic triumph, if not always a functional one.
One of the game’s standout thematic touches is the integration of historical notes. These enrich the experience, offering fascinating context for the gameplay elements. While not essential to understanding the mechanics, these tidbits make the game feel more immersive and rewarding for history buffs.
Gameplay: A Scholarly Dance of Actions and Options
At its core, Sankoré is a resource-management and area-control game with a heavy emphasis on player-driven strategies. Players must balance teaching, recruiting students, and contributing books to the library, which dynamically adjusts the value of different academic disciplines. The three main resources—salt, gold, and books—are tight, creating constant decision-making tension.
Key mechanics include:
Teaching and Class Tiles: Establishing and upgrading classes to attract students and unlock powerful bonuses. Choosing when and where to teach is central to success.
Area Actions: Placing mosques, trading posts, walls, and crowns on the board, each tied to a specific academic discipline. These actions offer varying rewards and influence opportunities.
Dynamic Scoring: The library’s distribution of books influences endgame scoring, rewarding players who adapt to shifting priorities.
While the mechanics are tightly interwoven, some aspects feel unnecessarily convoluted. For instance, the “overflow” rule in the law area adds an extra layer of complexity that feels more fiddly than fun. Similarly, the process for selecting students—where actions depend on class tiles rather than student colors—requires constant checking and rechecking of rules, which can pull players out of the flow of the game.
The reliance on interdependent mechanics creates a steep learning curve. While rewarding for those who enjoy deep strategy, this complexity may alienate more casual players. For fans of the designers’ earlier work, such as Merv: The Heart of the Silk Road, these added complications might feel like a step backward. Merv was lauded for its elegant integration of mechanics, whereas Sankoré sometimes feels overdesigned.
Brain Burners, Unite! (Or Maybe Not)
Sankoré provides an intensely strategic experience, demanding long-term planning and resource efficiency. The interaction between players is moderate, mostly indirect—such as competing for majority control in specific regions or vying for the best student recruits. This indirect interaction creates a cerebral competition but limits the potential for dramatic player-to-player moments.
Downtime between turns can occur, especially with players prone to analysis paralysis. With so many moving parts, turns often become lengthy as players calculate their best possible moves. While the richness of strategic options keeps engagement high for invested players, this can be a slog for those less enamored with heavy Euro-style games.
Perhaps the most significant drawback is the teaching time required to get everyone up to speed. The rules are dense, and even after setup, it may take several rounds before players feel comfortable navigating the game’s systems. Unfortunately, the payoff for this effort doesn’t quite justify the upfront investment. The gameplay is solid, but it’s rarely electrifying. For a game of this weight, it lands somewhere in the “just fine” territory rather than being a standout.
Fans of the designers’ previous work might feel a tinge of disappointment—Merv offered tighter mechanics and a more rewarding payoff for its complexity. While Sankoré introduces some innovative ideas, they don’t always coalesce into a seamless experience. This inconsistency dampens the overall enjoyment.
Final Reflections: From Timbuktu to Meh-ville
Sankoré: The Pride of Mansa Musa is a beautifully crafted game that blends rich history with deep strategic gameplay, but it doesn’t quite hit the high notes one might expect. Its thematic depth and innovative mechanics are admirable, yet the busy board, convoluted rules, and underwhelming enjoyment-to-effort ratio leave it feeling merely “okay.”
The game’s redeeming qualities—its thematic richness and aesthetic appeal—can’t fully compensate for its shortcomings. The mechanics often feel more like work than play, and the moments of true satisfaction are few and far between. For history buffs and fans of heavy Eurogames, Sankoré might still offer a worthwhile experience. However, those expecting a masterpiece on par with Merv might want to temper their expectations.
Who is this game for? Fans of medium-to-heavy Eurogames who don’t mind a bit of rule bloat or extra teaching time, and history enthusiasts who can overlook some rough edges in favor of thematic immersion.
Final Rating: 6.5 out of 10
The Bottom Line: A solid but unspectacular entry in the Eurogame genre, Sankoré impresses with its theme and visuals but falters in its execution. Best approached with patience—and a willingness to embrace complexity.
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