Nine Men's Morris is a two-player strategy board game with a long history in Europe. The pattern of the board is found twice, as graffiti, in the 1300 BC Egyptian temple, the Ramesseum in Kurna in Egypt. Each player has nine pieces which move between the twenty-four intersections of three interlocking squares.
The game also goes under many other English names, including Nine Man Morris, Mill, Mills, Merels, Merelles, Merrills, as well as names in other languages such as Merelles, Merrills, Molle, Muhle, Molenspel, Jeu de Moulin, Tria, Trilha, Malom.
The object of the game is to remove all the enemy pieces. Every time a player forms a line of three (a mill) on any line drawn on the board, he is entitled to remove one enemy piece, with the provision that a piece may not be removed from an enemy mill.
The game starts with the board empty. Players take turns placing pieces on any empty intersection. After all eighteen pieces have been placed, players take turns moving. A move consists of sliding a piece along one of the board lines to an adjacent intersection.
If a move in either phase of play results in three collinear pieces of the same color, then any one of the opponent's pieces may be removed from the board, unless that piece is currently forming a 3 in a row and there are other pieces of the opponent's color still on the board.
An ideal position, which typically results in a win, is to be able to shuttle one piece back and forth between two mills, removing a piece every turn. For example, in the diagram above red has won the game even if blue moves first.
When a player is reduced to three pieces, those pieces may fly from any intersection to any intersection. This appears to be a powerful resource for an underdog, but in fact rarely changes the outcome of a game.
Once a player has been reduced to two pieces, they are unable to capture any more of their opponent's pieces, and therefore that player loses the game.
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