Goals

Goals are profoundly important in games. These tie the turns together into a cohesive whole, and also provide direction and tension.

The alternative is aimlessness, where the player can do whatever they like, but there's no strong incentive to do any particular thing, or any need to hurry.

Goals can be part of the game, or just literal "goal" cards that you have a hand of.

Aimlessness

In my farming game, I created all kinds of things that you could do. However, the game was strangely aimless, despite its parts being interesting. There was no particular reason to do anything. I tried the simplest answer possible: goal cards, like in Wingspan. They just told you to achieve something by game end. If you did, you got points. Suddenly, the game had a direction.

My farm game then had goal cards. At the end of the game, you'd scramble to complete them. It was tense and interesting. However, the early game was still fairly aimless. I decided that you could complete goals before the end of the game, and that completed goals would give their reward *each* round. Now, it's a constant scramble to complete goals before the end of each round. It's a vastly better game.

If your game is "mysteriously not that good" for some reason, lack of goals is a likely cause.

Multi-step actions

In Agricola, many Minor Improvement cards can't be played unless you've played some number of Occupation cards. Each of these is like a little goal.

Lords of Waterdeep has "quests". These are thinly-disguised goal cards. You gather the required adventurers, and cash in the quest for points. It's fun.

A high cost is a kind of a goal.

Requirements are also a goal.

Goal function

Start your players with at least one goal card.

Make the goals impactful.

Wingspan's goal cards are worth about as much as a bird card. I wish they were worth more, as doing some boring action is often superior to completing a goal card.

Goals should generally not consume the thing that is used for the goal. They should simply require that you have it. Consumption is cyclical, while requirements are Growth. Growth is feelgood.

In Lords of Waterdeep, the quest cards do consume your resources, but they give you some new resources, so you're not just back to nothing again.

Your goals should have all-or-nothing thresholds. It's fine to award progressive points, like "2 points per house". However, these lack tension, and are repetitive. The player just keeps doing the thing. Instead, try to have goals with specific objectives, like "have three houses, to get 7 points".

In my farm game, you can just collect valuable tokens, if you like. However, it's probably better to save up, and build the Manor or Harbor, which are worth lots of points. These are effectively goals, and the player must come up with a plan, in order to amass enough resources to pay for the building. This is much more interesting.