Nine Men's Morris against the computer at three levels or with a friend on one device. Form mills to remove rival pieces.
What is Nine Men's Morris?
Nine Men's Morris is a two-player strategy board game in which each player places nine pieces on a board of three nested squares, then moves them along the lines, trying to form mills, rows of three pieces of their own colour. Each mill lets you remove one of your opponent's pieces, and you win by reducing your opponent to two pieces or by leaving them with no legal move.
The game has no dice and no hidden information. It plays in three distinct stages, placing, moving and jumping, and each stage asks for a different way of thinking, which is why it has stayed popular for many centuries.
How to play Nine Men's Morris
The board has 24 points: the corners and side midpoints of three squares, one inside the other, with lines joining the midpoints of the squares. Pieces move only along these lines, never diagonally. There are 16 possible mills: each side of each square, plus the four lines that cross the rings.
Placing. White moves first. The players take turns placing one of their nine pieces on any empty point until all eighteen are on the board, or until pieces have been removed along the way.
Moving. Once all pieces are placed, each turn you move one of your pieces along a line to a neighbouring empty point. If you cannot move any piece, you lose.
Mills and removing. Whenever a placement or a move completes a row of three of your pieces on one line, you remove one opponent piece. It must be taken from outside the opponent's mills unless every one of their pieces is in a mill. Forming two mills with one move still removes only one piece. Moving a piece out of a mill and back again forms the mill anew and removes another piece.
Jumping and the end. A player who is down to three pieces may jump any piece to any empty point, which makes that player hard to trap. A player with fewer than three pieces, or with no legal move, loses. If both sides make 50 moves each after placement without forming a mill, the game is a draw.
Nine Men's Morris strategy and tips
Place for mobility. Beginners rush to make a mill during placement, and the opponent simply blocks it. Strong players use the placement stage to take well connected points and to keep their pieces free to move later. The midpoints of the middle square each touch four lines, the midpoints of the outer and inner squares touch three, and the corners only two.
Block more than you build early. Every two-in-a-row your opponent makes with an open third point must be answered. Placing a piece there blocks the mill and often adds a piece of your own to another line. Look for placements that do both.
Create two threats at once. A placement or move that threatens to close two different mills cannot be stopped with one piece. This is the main way to win material in the placement stage.
Build a double mill in the moving stage. The strongest formation is a piece that shuttles between two mills and closes one of them each time it moves. Every move removes a piece, and the opponent can rarely stop it once it is set up.
Use blocking as a weapon. In the moving stage you can win without removing pieces at all, by surrounding the opponent's pieces until none can move. Keep your own pieces spread out so this does not happen to you.
Be careful near the end. When your opponent is down to three pieces they can jump anywhere and block any mill in one move. Against three jumping pieces you need two open mill threats at the same time.
Computer levels and game options
You can play against the computer or with a friend on one device. Against the computer you choose Easy, Medium or Hard and who moves first. Easy looks one move ahead and makes some loose moves on purpose. Medium searches three moves ahead. Hard keeps searching deeper for about a second per move.
Our game uses the standard rules described above, including jumping at three pieces and the 50-move draw rule. Related games exist on other boards, such as three and six men's morris on smaller boards and twelve men's morris with diagonal lines, but this game is the nine-piece version only.
The history of Nine Men's Morris
Nine Men's Morris is one of the oldest board games still played. It was very popular in medieval Europe, where boards were scratched into the stone benches and cloisters of several English cathedrals. William Shakespeare mentions a muddy nine men's morris board in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
The game was also an early subject of computer analysis. In 1993 the computer scientist Ralph Gasser showed that with perfect play from both sides, Nine Men's Morris ends in a draw. Between human players, mistakes in the placement stage decide most games.
Play Nine Men's Morris free on Hevagames
Nine Men's Morris runs in the browser on phones, tablets and computers, with no download. Tap or click to place a piece, to pick a piece and its destination, or to remove an opponent piece after a mill. A hint line under the board tells you what to do next: place, move, jump or remove. Above the board, counters track how many pieces each side still has to place and, once placement is over, how many remain in play.
With a keyboard, the arrow keys jump to the nearest point in that direction and Enter or Space selects. Undo, with the button or Ctrl+Z, takes back your last move and the computer's reply. A game left unfinished stays in your browser, and wins in a row against the computer are counted as a streak.
How to play
- 1Choose vs Computer (Easy, Medium or Hard, and who moves first) or 2 Players. White moves first.
- 2Take turns placing your 9 pieces on empty points. Then move a piece along a line to a neighbouring empty point.
- 3Three of your pieces in a line is a mill: remove one rival piece, from outside a mill if possible.
- 4With only 3 pieces left you may jump to any empty point. A player with 2 pieces or no legal move loses.
Controls
Tips
- During placement, spread out; pieces bunched in a corner get blocked later.
- A piece that can slide back and forth between two mills removes a rival piece every other move.
- The counters above the board show pieces left to place, then pieces on the board.
