Nine Men's Morris

Ancient strategy board game. Place and slide your pieces to form mills — rows of three — and capture the AI's pieces. Reduce it below three to win, then chase a longer streak.

How to play

The game has two stages. First, take turns placing your nine pieces on any empty point. Then, slide a piece along a line to a neighbouring empty point.

Whenever you line up three of your pieces along a marked line you form a mill, and you immediately remove one of the opponent's pieces. You cannot take a piece that is itself inside a mill unless every enemy piece is in one.

You win when the AI is reduced to two pieces, or when it has no legal move left. When you are down to your last three pieces you may 'fly' a piece to any empty point instead of sliding.

Beat the AI to add to your win streak — that streak is your score, and the AI grows sharper with every win.

Tips & strategy

The four points where four lines cross are the most valuable squares on the board, because a piece there can join more potential mills and has the most directions to slide. Grab these crossing points early in the placing stage and you will spend the rest of the game with more options than your opponent.

The strongest weapon in this game is the double mill, also called a running mill: two mills that share a piece, so that sliding one piece out of one mill and back forms the other every single turn. Each swing captures a piece, and a well-placed running mill can dismantle the opponent before they recover. Setting one up should be your main plan once pieces start moving.

Defence matters as much as attack during placing. Watch every line where the opponent already has two pieces and an empty point, and block it before they close the mill — but do not block so passively that you never build threats of your own. The best blocking move is one that also starts a mill for you.

Think ahead to the moving stage while you place. Pieces packed into a corner have few escape squares and are easy to trap, while spreading along the cross points keeps you mobile. If you can leave the opponent with no legal move you win outright, so cramping their pieces is a real route to victory, not just capturing them one by one.