What Are the Rules of the Nine Men's Morris Board Game?

9 men's morris is also called Merel or Mills. This is an abstract strategy game whose history can be traced back to the Roman Empire. It is related to the board game morabaraba, three men's morris, six men's morris, and twelve men's morris.

Each player has 9 pieces, and both players take turns to play chess. When the three pieces are connected in a line, it is called general mill game. Then it is possible to remove any pieces of the opponent that are not in the mill. After the two players have played all the pieces, they start to move the pieces in turn, and they can only move one square to the adjacent position at a time. When there are only 3 pieces left, the pieces can be moved to any position. When one party has eaten all the pieces or there is no way to go, the other party wins.

The equipment for mills unblocked game is mainly a game board with nine dollars per player. Checkers or poker chips can work well, or you can use any similar token.

Setup for Nine Men's Morris

The circuit board consists of three concentric squares, with three points (two corners and a midpoint) marked on each side of each square. The midpoints of the same side of the three squares are connected by a straight line. Twenty-four points are marked on the board. These points are where the game pieces are placed or moved.

Gameplay of Nine Men's Morris

The nine men's morris game starts from the setup phase. Whenever you create a three-string string on a line, you can delete a piece of your opponent. Since this rule is effective in both the setup and regular games, you need to be strategic from the first moment of the game. You cannot delete the opponent's pieces that are part of the three-part string (or grind) unless there are no other pieces to delete.

Set up stage. Players take turns to place their pieces on the vacant positions. Everyone has 9 chess pieces. So you can choose from 24 pieces on the board to place the pieces. Each player takes turns placing one piece. This is a practical strategy. You can see where your opponent placed the pieces and know whether the position where you placed the pieces is friendly or not. You want to prevent your opponent from creating a string of three pieces on a line, otherwise they will be able to delete one of your pieces. You are also looking for an opportunity to create a three-part string on one line.

Regular stage. After placing all 18 parts, the regular phase begins. At this stage, turning involves sliding the part to an empty spot along a straight line.

When a player creates a string of three pieces on a line, they will immediately delete one of their opponents. This phenomenon may occur during the setup phase or the regular phase. Unless there are other sections available, the opponent section that is part of the string cannot be deleted.

The main variants of men's morris game are mills eagles solitaire, cube escape mill and mills eagles happy wheels.

In the game variant, the player only has three pieces left. They can move the pieces to any free position on the board.