Take turns placing your pieces on empty points
| Tap an empty point | Place a piece during the opening phase. |
| Tap your piece, then a point | Slide it along a line. |
| Form a mill | Three in a row lets you remove an opposing piece. |
Nine Men's Morris is one of the oldest board games still played, with boards scratched into Roman roof tiles and medieval cathedral steps. Each player has nine pieces. Place them on the board, then slide them along the lines, and every time you get three in a row you form a mill and remove one of your opponent's pieces.
The game has three distinct phases and each plays differently. Placing is about staking out the intersections that belong to the most lines; moving is about opening and closing mills repeatedly to grind down your opponent; and the endgame, once you are down to three pieces, lets you jump anywhere, which turns a lost position into a desperate scramble.
Take the intersections that belong to the most lines. Some points sit on two lines and some on only one, and pieces on busy intersections contribute to far more potential mills. Claiming those early shapes the whole game.
Build a double mill if you can. Two mills sharing a piece let you open one and close the other on alternate turns, removing an opposing piece every single move. It is the most powerful structure in the game and usually decides it.
When taking a piece, remove one that is about to complete a mill rather than one already in a mill. Pieces sitting in a completed mill are protected in most rule sets anyway, and breaking up a developing threat is worth more than a symbolic capture.
Do not let yourself get blocked. You lose if you cannot move, so avoid clustering all your pieces where they hem each other in. Keeping open lines matters as much as building mills.
Three of your pieces in a row along a line. Forming one lets you remove an opposing piece from the board.
You win by reducing your opponent to two pieces, or by leaving them with no legal move.
You can jump to any empty point rather than sliding along lines, which gives a losing player a fighting chance.
Genuinely ancient. Boards have been found carved into Roman-era stone, and it was hugely popular in medieval Europe.
Completely free, with no trial and no unlock. Nine Mens Morris loads with the page and plays immediately, without an install step or a video ad first.