Nine Men's Morris

Place your nine men, line up three on a marked line to form a mill, and pick off your opponent's pieces until they can no longer fight.

How to play

Nine Men's Morris is an ancient strategy game played on a board of three nested squares joined by lines. Each player has nine men. The goal is to form mills — three of your men in a row along a marked line — because every mill lets you remove one of your opponent's men. Reduce a foe to two men, or leave them with no legal move, to win.

• Placing: take turns dropping your nine men onto empty points.
• Moving: once all are placed, slide a man along a line to an adjacent empty point.
• Form a mill to capture one enemy man, but you cannot take a man already in a mill unless every enemy man is in one.
• Flying: down to your last three men, you may jump to any empty point instead of sliding.
• Win by leaving your opponent with two men or no legal move.

Game modes

• Vs CPU: face the computer on Easy, Normal, or Hard.
• 2-Player: hot-seat play on a single device.
• Online: create an invite, join with a code, or quick-match a remote opponent.

Controls

• Desktop: click an empty point to place, click your man then a destination to move, and click an enemy man to remove after a mill.
• Phone & tablet: tap points the same way to place, move, and capture.

Tips & strategy

• Build a 'swinging' mill — two mills sharing a point — so you can open and re-close one every turn for repeated captures.
• Fight for the four central crossing points; they connect to the most lines and give your men the most mobility.

Origins

Nine Men's Morris — a 'mill' game of lining up three in a row — is genuinely ancient. The Romans played versions of it, and morris boards turn up scratched into the stone of temples, cathedrals and cloister benches across the old world. It was hugely popular in medieval Europe, played by everyone from monks to farmhands, and even earns a mention in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

About Nine Men's Morris

Nine Men's Morris is a traditional mills game with roots going back thousands of years. This is an original, free browser version with three CPU levels, local two-player, and online matches. No download or sign-up required.

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