There's no reason that code reuse would lead to a similar game.  In my experience, game-specific code takes up less than half of the overall codebase, and common infrastructural stuff is the majority.  The only reason I've rewritten a lot of stuff over the past several years is that I've improved significantly as a programmer, and I'm finally starting to build things that are genuinely modular.

Specificially, I've been using the observer pattern a whole lot lately.  For anyone who doesn't know what it is, it's just the formal name for creating observer interfaces so that dependencies on a particular class don't have to be known ahead of time.  For example, I have a Scheduler class that manages the updates for large numbers of objects by spreading out big updates over several seconds, rather than updating all the objects a little bit every frame.  This is totally necessary for my current project, which simulates thousands of buildings, planets, and corporations at a time.  But there's nothing game-specific about this functionality, and I'm using the exact same code for all the different types of entities.  So I just create a listener class I_SchedulerListener, and any entity that must be managed in such a way is derived from this.  It's then added to a Scheduler, and it's ready to go.

I'm definitely finding that the more I develop, the more modules I'm finding to be very general.

How many people reuse significant portions of code over multiple projects?  And what kind of systems generally lend themselves well to reuse?

I ask because I'm trying to plan a bit ahead in game development because I'm hoping to leverage large parts of my codebase.  Specifically, I'm hoping that by developing simple games early on, I'll have a solid base of code from which to build on for later, more ambitious projects.  My current project is heavy on the user-interface code (which should be very reusable) and economic simulation code (which will be unlikely to be reused for anything other than a sequel).  My guess is that general game framework, user interface, AI, and graphics code are the most commonly reused modules.

More on topic, Synapse, do you think the polish is superficial?  Personally, I would take a clever gimmick over polish any day.  I think less-polished games are more acceptable with web games and cell phone games than on the desktop.

Arguably there are a few types of polish - interface tightness, visual effects, and gameplay balancing.  I don't think it's controversial to say that gameplay balancing and an elegant interface are more important than a sparkling cursor.  In a complicated strategy game, a clean interface may actually be as important as tight gameplay, simply because a user must be able to interact with the game effectively enough to experience the tight gameplay.  So no, I don't think these kinds of polish are superfiical.

Also, this kind of polish is rarely found in indie games.  The ones that have it tend to get recognized very quickly for it.

But this is pretty offtrack from the original strategy/simulation market discussion.  If we're going to talk polish, we should move this to the game design forum.

There've definitely been some good posts.  I think one thing that's missing is a more formal description of what exactly makes up a strategy game - there are numerous examples such as Civilization, Starcraft, and even the indie games like Democracy or Kudos.  And as RinkuHero mentioned, genres such as real-time strategy merge action with strategic planning.  As usual, the line is blurred and we have to make a distinction between mostly-action and mostly-strategy games.

I suppose that the important trend to be observed is that while strategy games are certainly not dead, and probably not even less popular...the successful ones must be much more polished these days.  And I think that trend is true for all popular indie-games - the need for a unique, chic artistic style.  Older action indie games may have gotten away with just a cool new gameplay mechanic, and older strategy indie games got away with a complex set of interacting rules with a deep simulation.  But to be successful, modern games need innovation AND polish.

As for the initial question, you guys have convinced me - strategy games seem to be doing fine.

you are way off base: http://www.sinsofasolarempire.com/

I'm not sure one or two counterexamples makes me way off base.  I've heard of this game and it looks quite polished, but that doesn't mean that strategy games haven't become far less popular.

Dwarf Fortress is pretty much the ultimate example of a low-polish simulation-heavy game.  But how many other games are there in this genre?  Or does DF really cover the market demand?

And I'd classify tower defense games more as action than strategy, for the most part.

I can't help but notice a big trend in indie gaming towards highly polished, action-oriented gameplay.  [Perhaps it's always been that way - I'm quite new to the indie game scene.]  Games like Defcon (if it's still considered indie), Everyday Shooter, and fl0w are beautiful, but quite simple gameplay-wise.

Not that simple gameplay is a negative- but I haven't seen many strategic indie games lately.  Are wargames and business games mostly dead?  Or am I way off base?

Guitar Hero - as referenced above, an amazing party game.  of course, if i'd spent half the time learning how to play guitar instead...

Shadow of the Colossus - only bosses...brilliant.

Diablo 2 - perfecting a completely mundane game mechanic (get more stuff).  torturously addictive - a guilty pleasure.

EVE online - never got into it for more than a month - but wow.  Deep, cerebral, and blowing stuff up in space.  Also, they friggin hired an economist PhD to run their game.

Contra HardCorps - months of fun trying to get all of the endings with a buddy.  including the secret monkey princess ending that we found accidentally.

I'd have to agree with the general sentiment.  Computer games are a difficult medium to tell a story, largely because they require large amounts of interaction.  However, something like a pen and paper game can be quite effective at telling a story, only because a person is able to intervene.

A human "dungeon master" (or whatever) is able to override game mechanics, provide important nuances to storyline at key points, and to actually develop the story in response to the players' actions.  It's not impossible that computer games could do this someday, it's just incredibly, incredibly difficult.

But yeah, start with gameplay mechanics.  And if the mechanics are no more detailed than "JRPG meets Western RPG", then you better work on it some more.

I'm working on a simulation-heavy economic game in C++, and I'm trying to figure out how big I can make it given common memory and computational limits.  It's pretty clear when cpu usage gets too high...but what's a good upper limit on memory usage?  I'm at about 50mb right now.

On a related note, what's a good upper limit on video card memory used for textures and such?

Word up.  I'm Alex and a short-time lurker of TIG forums.  I recently moved to Chicago as part of a poorly thought-out plan to quit my comfortable, well-paid programming job and work full-time as an indie game developer.  I haven't finished a game since I was 11 (I'm now 25.)  Hopefully I'm as good a programmer as I pretend I am and can crank some quality stuff out before I die of starvation and/or heat exhaustion.

I'm currently working on a smallish business/economic simulation game called Lucre.  I'll definitely be asking for feedback in the days to come.  I look forward to debating the need for savepoints in RPGs and the finer details of the observer design pattern.