Description
Nine men's morris is a strategy board game for two players dating at least to the Roman Empire. The game is also known as nine-man morris, mill, mills, the mill game, merels, merrills, merelles, marelles, morelles, and ninepenny marl, cowboy checkers in English.
The board consists of a grid with twenty-four intersections or points. Each player has nine pieces, or "men", usually colored black and white. Players try to form 'mills'—three of their own men lined horizontally or vertically—allowing a player to remove an opponent's man from the game. A player wins by reducing the opponent to two pieces (where they could no longer form mills and thus be unable to win), or by leaving them without a legal move.
The game proceeds in three phases:
1. Placing men on vacant points
2. Moving men to adjacent points
3. (optional phase) Moving men to any vacant point when the player has been reduced to three men.
When a player is reduced to three pieces, there is no longer a limitation on that player of moving to only adjacent points: The player's men may "fly" (or "hop", or "jump") from any point to any vacant point.