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Vying Games : Nine Men's Morris

Nine Men's Morris is an ancient abstract strategy game that probably dates back to the Roman Empire. It became popular medieval England, and is also known as Mill, Mills, Merels, Merelles, and Merrills.

How to Play

In Nine Men's Morris one player plays black, the other white. Black goes first.

The game is divided into phases. During the first phase, the players take turns placing one of their 9 pieces. Later, after all 9 pieces have been placed, the players take turns moving their pieces along the lines on the board, to any unoccupied space, a single space at a time.

Throughout the game, the objective is to form mills, lines of 3 of your pieces in a row. Everytime you form a mill, you may remove one of your opponent's pieces. Also, pieces in mills are protected, and may not be removed from the board unless there isn't any other choice.

The objective is to reduce your opponent to only 2 pieces such that they can no longer form a mill. Alternatively, if during the movement phase of the game, a player can no longer move, they lose immediately.

Flying

Here at Vying Games, Nine Men's Morris is played with the popular Flying Rule. During the movement phase, a player that is reduced to 3 pieces, may move any piece to any open space on the board. This gives a player on the verge of losing an advantage, so care should be taken when reducing a player to their last 3 pieces.

Strategy

A common strategy is to try to create a setup where one piece can be moved back and forth between two mills, allowing one to grind down his or her opponent.

About the Bots

The bots are somewhat weak at the moment. It's doubtful they'll give an experienced player any trouble, but they should be adequate for learning the rules and basic strategy.