Variant Library
Nine Men’s Morris — also called Mills or Mühle — is one of the oldest known strategy games, with boards scratched into Roman stone floors, Egyptian temple rooftops, and medieval wooden cathedral furniture. The game belongs to a family called Mill games: placement and movement games in which the goal is to form three-in-a-row lines (mills) and remove opponent pieces. Variants range from the tiny Three Men’s Morris (a 3×3 grid) to the elaborate Twelve Men’s Morris with diagonal connections.
This library includes 7 playable variants from the Mill game family.
Classic Sizes
- Three Men’s Morris — The 3×3 ancestor: 3 pieces per side, no movement phase, pieces teleport
- Six Men’s Morris — Two concentric squares; the medieval European standard before Nine was codified
- Nine Men’s Morris — Three concentric squares; the definitive and most widely played form
- Twelve Men’s Morris — Three concentric squares with added diagonal connections; 12 pieces per side
Modern Variants
- Lasker Morris — Move or place on each turn (not sequential phases); designed by World Chess Champion Emanuel Lasker
African Forms
- Morabaraba — South African national game: cows instead of men, additional three-piece ending rules
- Shax — Somali: capture instead of forming a mill during the placement phase