Nine Men's Morris

Nine Men's Morris, also known as 'Mill' is a player vs computer, mouse controlled, implementation of a strategy board game that the author claims dates back over three thousand years!

This is a three phase, turn based game played on a board with concentric squares marked on it. These are connected by lines. The object of the game is to form a line of three pieces. This is called a 'mill'. Doing so costs the opposing player one piece.

Phase one sees the players putting their pieces onto the board looking for a strategic advantage, trying to form a mill or positioning their pieces so that their opponent cannot form a mill. Phase two has the players taking turns to move their pieces around the board, according to a set of rules, looking to form a mill.

The game ends when one player has only two pieces left - obviously they cannot form a mill so for them it's over - or when a player has no valid moves to make.

This implementation has options for player vs computer as either black or white, human vs human, computer vs computer, and the player can adjust the computer's thinking time for a harder or an easier game. In addition the author has added a few restrictions of their own, declaring the game is a draw when either player has made two hundred moves or when fifty moves have taken place and no piece has been captured. A draw will also be declared if the positions of the pieces on the board are repeated three times with the same player to move, in other words the game detects a stalemate and ends the match.