'Nine Men's Morris' is an abstract strategy board game for two players. The origin of the game was found in the ancient Egypt.
The game is also known as 'Nine Man Morris', 'Mill', 'Mills', 'Merels', 'Merelles', and 'Merrills' in English.
Each player has nine pieces, or 'men', which move among the board's twenty-four intersections. The object of the game is to leave the opposing player with fewer than three pieces or, as in checkers, no legal moves.
The game is divided into two phases: the placing and the moving of the pieces.
The game begins with an empty board. Players take turns placing their pieces on empty intersections. If a player is able to form a row of three pieces along one of the board's lines, he has a 'mill' and may remove one of his opponent's pieces from the board; removed pieces may not be placed again. Players must remove any other pieces first before removing a piece from a formed mill. Once all eighteen pieces have been placed, players take turns moving.
To move, a player slides one of his pieces along a board line to an empty adjacent intersection. If he cannot do so, he has lost the game.
As in the placement stage, a player who aligns three of his pieces on a board line has a mill and may remove one of his opponent's pieces, avoiding the removal of pieces in mills if at all possible.
Any player reduced to two pieces is unable to remove any more opposing pieces and thus loses the game.
In one common variation, once a player is reduced to three pieces, his pieces may 'fly', 'hop' or 'jump' to any empty intersections, not only adjacent ones. Some sources of the rules say this is the way the game is played, some treat it as a variation, and some don't mention it at all. A '19th Century Games Manual' calls this the «truly rustic mode of playing the game».