Your cycle of replacing players is too short. Even past the age of 21 players that you have had since the age of 18 will continue to make gains. Training to 120% during the first week of the season I can keep players until the age of 23/24. Even if these players stop being trained to 120% when they get "older" their white skills will be much higher than anything you can buy from auction.
Keeping lower rated, older players 100-110%, 23/24 year olds will save you resources and still get results.
Still, maybe you was wrong with those players being 1st class FT? Did you test them? They should gain a bit more if they were, I dont know the exact numbers for 18yo, but when I bring my 25yo FT to 120%, they become 129-130 end of season. Tox, I think you train young players to 120, how are they doing?
I was thinking the same way earlier, not worth keeping players over 21, at least a little bit longer. That also came from the standart football manager logic I know - maximize your money, so developing young players is great for this, I thought.
Then I realized we are all oligarchs here lol, also I observed (probably not obvious for all, but I see this tendence), that too young players often perform bad in key games. And finally the white skills thing, which I started to follow at some point, so it became harder to say good-bye to my players. So now I am running my first 15-seasons-cycle![]()
Also you can't push 12 players to 120% every season. There just aren't enough greens to get it done, especially when 3 of these players start below 100% and also maybe need SA/position training. Do 2 players every season and keep them to the age of 23.
With 21-23 the players have their mutant stats and perform the best in my experience.
Lets say I farm 840 rests a season plus all the ones from facilities and rewards i get to 1000
3 players from 95% to 120% take me about 360-400
For the remaining 8 players that will be around 110% it will take me about 60 rest packs each, so about 480
I still have another 100 or so left
Also right now I only have 6 FT to recover so I will have extra rest packs I keep
Try to produce more than I use per season
Looks possible to me
i guess i need to try it first