A Tic-Tac-Toe inspired game

This Game is inspired by Tic-Tac-Toe, and changed with number of players, game board, rules and the win condition. 

Players: 3

Material: pen, paper and cards-12 cards numbered 1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5,5,6 and 6. (If you do not have cards, you can definitely make cards by yourself, write down numbers on each piece of paper)

Rules:

Players mark the board in turn.

Decide mark location by choosing a card, for example, the cards are 3 and 4, then mark the board either in 3,4 or 4,3.

Mark the blank space or any where in the smaller game board.

To win: The first one who makes a line/diagonal line with 4 marks.

Game board:

When we do the game experience, we found that the more people engaged, the more interesting the game is (from one to four). For the game which requires two players and make decisions only by rolling dime, actually only one person is needed because there are no other thing to think other than roll a dime. When two players play a game which requires communication and guessing what the opponent's thoughts, it seems like they are more engaged in the game. When four players play the same game, they need to be two teams, so the two players in the same team should make decisions together, and that provides more opportunity to communicate. In my game, three players, or three teams, two players can defend or attack the third player together when they are in bad conditions, and play back to three players at any time.