You usually do get a reasonable sense for what each player is pursuing by the end of the game, but it can be somewhat muddied by there being instrumental reasons to seek to control areas, make money, cycle your cards in search of better ones (etc) even when it’s not your win condition.
A devious player might take some overt actions to make you think they’re pursuing a different goal than the one they’ve actually got. Or at least keep you guessing. On occasion I’ve ended games with wrong beliefs about what the other players were aiming for.
You usually do get a reasonable sense for what each player is pursuing by the end of the game, but it can be somewhat muddied by there being instrumental reasons to seek to control areas, make money, cycle your cards in search of better ones (etc) even when it’s not your win condition.
A devious player might take some overt actions to make you think they’re pursuing a different goal than the one they’ve actually got. Or at least keep you guessing. On occasion I’ve ended games with wrong beliefs about what the other players were aiming for.