About Nine Men’s Morris
Nine Men’s Morris is an ancient strategy game that originated in Roman times. It is popular in many cultures around the world, from medieval Europe to India and the Middle East. It is a two-player game that uses a special board with 24 intersections and each player has 9 pieces. The object of the game is to form “mills” (three pieces in a row in a straight line) to eliminate your opponent’s pieces, while preventing your opponent from doing the same.
How to play Nine Men’s Morris
Phase 1: Placing Pieces
- Each player takes turns placing one of their pieces on an empty intersection on the board.
- This phase lasts until both players have placed all 9 pieces (18 total placements).
- If a player creates a mill during this phase, they may remove one of their opponent’s pieces. (A piece that is in an opponent’s mill may not be removed unless there is no other option.)
Phase 2: Moving Pieces
- Once all of their pieces have been placed, players begin moving their pieces. Each turn, a player selects a piece and moves it to an adjacent empty intersection, connected by a line on the board.
- If a player creates a mill during this phase, they may remove one of their opponent’s pieces (following the same rules as in phase 1).
- This phase continues until one of the two players has only 2 pieces left or cannot move.
Phase 3: Flying
- If a player is reduced to three pieces, they enter the “flying” phase (in some rule variants). They can move a piece to any vacant point on the board, not just adjacent ones.
- The opponent, if they have more than three pieces, continues moving only to adjacent points unless they also drop to three pieces.
