The Mill

Setup

The board is three concentric squares joined by four lines running between the midpoints of their sides. That is twenty-four points, and pieces stand ON the points rather than inside cells — there are no cells, and there are no diagonals anywhere on the board.

Each player has nine pieces. The board starts completely empty, and you place them one at a time before anybody moves anything.

There are sixteen lines of three: four round each of the three squares, and the four spokes running from the outer ring to the inner one. Those sixteen are the only lines that count — three pieces in a row that are not on one of them are just three pieces.

The game is called الطاحونة in Arabic — the mill — which is what it is called in German and Hebrew too, and is exactly what you are trying to build. It is one of the oldest board games there is, played across Europe and the Mediterranean for well over a thousand years.

How to play

PHASE ONE, placing. Take turns putting one piece on any empty point until all eighteen are down.

PHASE TWO, moving. Take turns sliding one piece along a line to an adjacent empty point. You may not jump, and you may not move to a point that is not joined to the one you are on.

Whenever you get three of your own pieces onto one of the sixteen lines — whether by placing or by moving — you have made a MILL, and you immediately take one of your opponent's pieces off the board. It does not come back.

You may not take a piece that is standing in a mill of its own, as long as your opponent has any piece that is not. If every one of their pieces is in a mill, then any of them may be taken.

You may break a mill by moving a piece out of it and close it again by moving back, and it counts every time. Building two mills that share a piece — so that moving that piece back and forth closes one or the other every turn — is the strongest thing in the game and is worth learning early.

PHASE THREE, flying. Once you are down to exactly three pieces you may move any of them to ANY empty point on the board, not just an adjacent one. This is what keeps a losing position alive.

Controls

While placing, every empty point lights up. Tap one to put a piece there.

While moving, tap one of your own pieces to pick it up — the ones you can actually move are ringed — and then tap where to send it. Tapping the same piece again puts it down.

When your move closes a mill, the board asks for the piece to take: the ones you are allowed to take are ringed in red. Tap one.

A piece standing in a completed mill carries a gold ring, so you can see at a glance which of your opponent's pieces are protected before you try to take one.

The board is the same way up for both players. Unlike the racing games there is no forward here, so nothing needs turning — which also means passing one phone between two people needs nothing at all.

Scoring

A win is worth 18 points, a draw 8, and a loss still pays 3 — the same principle every game here follows, that finishing a match is worth something even when you lose it.

It is priced below Dama and Chess deliberately: a game is shorter and, with two careful players, far more likely to end level.

The Mill is RATED. It moves the same ranked ladder as Chess and Dama, because it is a two-player game of complete information with no luck in it at all.

Winning five games earns Three in a Row, which is this game's badge as every title here has one, and it is awarded the moment your fifth win is recorded.

A game against the computer, or on one phone, awards nothing and moves no rating — the same rule every game here follows.

Winning

You win when your opponent is down to two pieces. Two pieces cannot make a line of three, so they can never make another mill and can never take anything back.

You also win when your opponent cannot move — every piece they have is boxed in by pieces and edges. Being blocked is a real loss here, not a stalemate.

Fifty moves each with no mill closed is a draw. With two careful players this game genuinely does reach positions neither side can break, and it has to be able to end.

The Mill is a solved game: with perfect play from both sides it is a draw. In practice almost nobody plays perfectly, and the mistakes are what the game is made of.

Tips

Take the midpoints first. Every point lies on exactly two lines of three, but a midpoint joins three or four neighbouring points where a corner joins two — so a piece there has far more room to move once every piece is down, and in the moving phase room to move is the game.

Build a DOUBLE MILL — two mills sharing one piece, so moving it back and forth closes one of them every single turn. A player with one of these takes a piece a move and the game is effectively over.

Watch for your opponent's two-in-a-row with the third point empty. Blocking it costs you one placement; not blocking it costs you a piece.

Do not spend the placing phase only making mills. A mill made early is often a mill you cannot open again, and nine pieces spread across the board beat five in a heap.

Mobility wins the middle game. Because being blocked is a loss, a position with plenty of empty points beside your pieces is worth more than one extra piece with nowhere to go.

When you get down to four, think hard before trading. At three you may fly, which is far stronger than it sounds — but at two you have lost, so the piece that takes you from four to three has to be worth it.