Play Terni Lapilli (Three Stones) - Ancient Roman Tic-tac-toe

Terni Lapilli (Three Stones) is an ancient Roman game, superficially similar to tic-tac-toe, and played on 3x3 grid. Each player has 3 stones, and places one of them on their turn till all their stones are on the board. After that, in each move, the player moves one of their stones along one of the lines to an adjacent empty spot on the grid. The first player to get 3 in a row, wins the game.

Example Terni Lapilli Board

The standard variant allows diagonal moves, and allows a victory to be claimed when 3 stones are lined up vertically, horizontally or diagonally. The other variant (popular in England) is called Nine Holes, and does not allow diagonal moves, and the winner must get the 3 stones to line up only horizontally or vertically. The standard variant is also known as Achi.

You can play the game in your browser at Parlor Games.

Choose between NOVICE (easy to beat), NORMAL (medium difficulty) and EXPERT (hard to beat) when you play against the computer.