Nine men's morris

The Roman Empire. Its boards are scratched into Roman buildings that still stand.

Who moves first?

You don't need an account or an email, and there's nothing to install. You'll get a link to send to the person you want to play.

How to play

The board

The board is three squares, one inside another, joined by lines through the middle of each side.
The lines meet at twenty-four points, and the board starts empty.
Each player has nine men.

Placing your men

You take turns putting one man on any empty point, until all eighteen are down.
Rows count from the very first move, so men come off the board before anybody has finished placing.

Moving

Once every man is placed, on your turn you slide one of your men along a line to an empty point next to it.
Men never jump over anything and never leave the lines.

Mills

Three of your men filling one of the board's lines is a mill.
Closing a mill lets you take one enemy man off the board, and that is part of the same turn.
You may not take a man standing in a mill, unless every man your opponent has left is in one.
If you open a mill and close it again, you take another man. A mill you can open and close over and over is very strong.

Flying

A player down to exactly three men may move any of them to any empty point on the board.
This is the losing side's one chance to come back, so a game can still turn when it looks lost.

Winning

A player reduced to two men has lost, because two men can never close a mill.
A player with no legal move has also lost.

Which rules do we use?

We play nine men's morris on twenty-four points, with flying.

The game is so old and so widespread that people play several versions of it. The difference that matters most is what happens to a player down to three men.

Some players play these two rules differently.

Flying at three: A player with exactly three men may move any of them anywhere. Without this rule the losing side has a much harder time, because three men pinned in a corner can never reach a line.
Taking from a mill: You may not take a man that stands in a mill, unless every man your opponent has left is in one. Without the second part, you could close a mill and find nothing you're allowed to take.

Mills count while men are still being placed. This surprises people who expect the game to start only once all the men are down.

Nine men's morris has no governing body, so we describe the rules we use instead of pointing to a rulebook.