morris(6)

👑 NAME 👑

okay bestie, so this is morris(6) — it lives in the Games section of the manual, and it's literally the Nine Men's Morris game for the Gnome desktop. That's the whole vibe. Periodt. 💖

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

morris

that's it. that's the whole invocation. no flags, no arguments, no drama. just run it. 💅

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Morris is an implementation of the board game "Nine Men's Morris". She goes by many names, bestie — Mills, Merrills, Morris, or Mühle if you're speaking German. 💫

And the way that Nine Men's Morris is probably 2000-3000 years old?? It's lowkey one of the oldest board games ever, and it is highkey way older than chess. From the 12th to the 18th century it was one of the most popular board games in Europe. iconic behaviour, honestly. And it's still actively played today, with several variants — like Morabaraba, which is particularly popular in South Africa. 🌍

This implementation doesn't just do the standard game — it supports several rule-variants and different board layouts. You can play against the computer, or you can just use the program to present the board and play against another human opponent. And the computer opponent learns from previous games and tries not to make the same mistake twice. Which means: enough variation in game-play, even if you did once manage to beat the program. 😭✨

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🌈 FEATURES 🌈

Among others, the game plays the following variants:

• Lasker variant (moves are also allowed in the set-phase)
• The Möbius board (invented by Ingo Althöfer)
• The Windmill board
• The Windmill board
• Pentagon and Hexagon boards
• Morabaraba
• Six and Seven Men's Morris
• Tapatan, Achi, Nine Holes

not the Windmill board getting listed twice 💀 she said "and I'll say it AGAIN." anyway, we keep it exactly as written, no cap.

Furthermore, the game supports:

• Advanced AI controls to tweak AI playing style
• Giving hints for good moves
• Showing the principal variation</plus>
• Move takeback (undo and redo)
• Internationalization (English, German, Chinese)
• Many board and rule variations
• Free customization of rules
• Configurable display

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🎀 STANDARD RULES 🎀

So each player has nine pieces (hence the name, Nine Men's Morris) which get placed and moved on the line crossings of the board. Whenever three pieces of the same color land in a straight row, a mill is closed and one opponent piece may be removed. 🌀

The goal of the game? Reduce the opponent to only two pieces (so they can't form a mill anymore), or surround the opponent pieces so that there are no valid moves for them. gg.

The game proceeds in three distinct phases (opening, midgame, and endgame). And unlike chess, these phases are distinguished by special rules for each phase. slay.

🌸 Opening - Setting pieces

The white player begins. Each player places one piece on an unoccupied position on the board in turns. If a mill is closed by setting a piece, the player may take one of the opponent's pieces. Once all pieces are set, the midgame starts. ✨

🌸 Midgame - Moving pieces

Each player moves one piece along the lines to a free, neighboring position. Again, if the move results in closing a mill, one of the opponent's pieces may be removed. Note that a player must move a piece in each turn. If there is no legal move, the player has lost. 😭

🌸 Endgame - Flying

If a player has only three pieces left, they can jump (or fly) with one piece to any unoccupied position instead of moving only along the board lines. it's giving main character energy, fr fr. 🦋

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💅 RULE DETAILS AND GAME VARIATIONS 💅

Some of these rules are often interpreted differently, which is why a whole variety of rule variants exist. This game tries to support most of them. In particular, the following rule variations are supported:

🌟 Taking from opponent mills

When a mill is closed, one opponent stone may be taken. However, usually it's not allowed to take a piece from an opponent's mill if they still have pieces that are not part of a mill. If you want, you can also allow players to take pieces from an opponent's mill. Note that you can always take pieces from an opponent's mill if all of their pieces are within mills. 🫶

🌟 Multiple mills

In the setting phase, it may happen that two mills are closed simultaneously. In the multiple-mills variations, the player may take two opponent pieces in this case. double trouble, bestie. 💀

🌟 Flying

Some people prefer to omit the flying rule, such that only standard moves may be conducted, even when a player is down to only three pieces.

🌟 Lasker variant (proposed by the chess grandmaster Emanuel Lasker)

There is no difference between opening and midgame. I.e., a player may decide to move a piece instead of setting a new piece. Usually, this variant is played with 10 pieces instead of only 9. 👑

🌟 Remis

If the same board situation appeared for N times (with N usually 3), the game is declared remis.

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🧚 AI ALGORITHM 🧚

heads up, the original indents this whole section by one extra space. we're not doing that, we're doing ✨aesthetic✨ instead.

The AI algorithm is a standard alpha-beta search in a NegaMax implementation using iterative deepening. It employs a transposition table to quickly find previously computed positions.

A special feature is the automatic learning capability: whenever the computer wins or loses a game, it will prefer to obtain or avoid similar situations in the future. This results in a better long-term motivation, since the computer will not make the same mistake twice and the gameplay will be more randomized. 🧠✨

The evaluation function is still quite basic and consists of four parts:

⭐ Material

The number of pieces each player has left.

⭐ Freedom

The number of possible moves a player can conduct.

⭐ Mills

The number of closed mills.

⭐ Experience

The learning-bias from previous games.

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🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

You can find more information at http://nine-mens-morris.net/

For bug reports, patches, or any kind of discussion, contact Dirk Farin <dirk.farin@gmail.com>

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🎀 and that's the whole page, bestie! this was morris(6), version 0.2, straight outta the Games manual section. go close a mill, take a piece, and remember: no legal moves = you lost, but you looked cute doing it. mwah. 💖🌈✨🦋💅