Mill - Two-Player Board Game

Nine Men's Morris, played since Roman times. Form a mill of three and take an opponent's stone. No luck, just reading ahead. Play the AI (3 levels) or a friend. Free.

Nine Men's Morris is a two-player board game said to have been played since Roman times. Its boards have been found carved into ancient Roman ruins and the stone benches of medieval European cathedrals. This app lets you play it on a slate board with glossy stones.

■ Simple rules, deep strategy White and Black each place 9 stones, one at a time, on the 24 points of a board made of three nested squares. Line up three of your stones along a line to form a "mill", then remove one of your opponent's stones. Win by reducing your opponent to two stones, or by leaving them with no legal move. There is no luck at all. Everything is on the board, so the further you read ahead, the stronger you get.

■ Three phases ・Placing: take turns putting stones on the board ・Moving: once all stones are placed, slide one stone at a time to an adjacent empty point ・Flying: with only three stones left, jump to any empty point (can be turned off in Settings) The opening, the middle game and the comeback in the endgame each have their own feel.

■ Play the AI (3 levels) Easy, Normal and Hard. Easy can be beaten by players who have just learned the rules. Hard reads deep and goes for chains of mills. Choose to play first, second or at random. Undo is available against the AI, so you can learn as you think.

■ Two players Take turns on a single device.

■ Easy to play ・Place with one tap. Move with two taps: stone, then a highlighted point ・When you form a mill, the stones you can take are outlined ・Selecting a stone lights up where it can go (can be turned off)

■ Rule options ・Flying on or off ・Draw after 50 moves without a capture ・Draw when the same position occurs three times Match the rules you grew up with.

■ Also ・Plays offline. The network is only used to show ads ・No account needed. Your games stay on your device ・Free to play (with ads, no in-app purchases) ・The How to Play screen explains the rules with diagrams