When can you build tractor barns in Anno 1800?

Tractor Barns are a great way to increase productivity on your crop farms. Tractors increase the farm's fields and productivity. At the same time, tractors decrease the required workforce.

To make this happen, Tractor Barns require fuel to work. Fuel is a processed good, produced by a fuel station (which uses oil as an input good).

When do Tractor Barns become available?

In Anno 1800 with the Bright Harvest DLC enabled, Tractor Barns unlock when you hit 500 Engineers in any of your cities. 

As said, you'll need the Bright Harvest DLC enabled in your game. This DLC adds numerous productivity increasing features to Anno 1800, like the Tractor Barn. It also adds Fuel Stations (which is required to get Tractor Barns to work, as they need the fuel that Fuel Stations produce). 

Grain and Red Pepper Farms in the Old world, with tractor barns active and tractors ploughing the fields. To the right, a train has just delivered fresh oil to the Fuel Station.

As well as crop farm improvements, Bright Harvest DLC also adds Silos. Silos provide similar benifits as Tractor Barns, but to animal farms. Silos unlock a lot earlier than Tractor Barns, opening up at 300 workers. 

What effect does a Tractor Barn have on the farm?

Tractor Barns greatly increase the productivity of crop farms they are connected to. This is achieved in several ways. The full effects are:

• +200% productivity
• +1/3rd production (you get an extra product every 3rd cycle)
• +50% farm fields (so you do need some extra space)
• -50% workforce required

The results are insane. Providing a crop farm with fueled tractors, raises the productivity to a whopping 400%.

A regular Grain farm with 144 fields. Productivity at 100%, producing 1 grain per minute.

To put this into perspective: A regular Grain Farm produces 1 grain per minute (60 seconds). You require 2 Grain farms for every Mill to provide enough grain for 2 Bakeries (2 - 1 - 2).

 A Grain farm with both Tractor Barn and Fertiliser Silo active and 216 fields (144 + 72 extra). 400% productivity and extra grain on every third cycle.

A Grain Farm with active Tractor Barn produces 4 grain per minute (1 every 20 second plus 1 extra on every 3rd cycle, so once every 60 seconds). That means 1 Grain Farm can provide 2 Mills with enough grain for 4 Bakeries (1 - 2 - 4).

Even more production!?

If you have the Seeds of Change DLC as well, you can increase it even more by adding a Fertiliser Silo. Adding Fertiliser will not require extra fields, but will increase both productivity and output. 

The full effects are:

• +100% productivity
• +1/3rd production (you get an extra product every 3rd cycle)

So by adding both Tractor Barn and Fertiliser Silo to a Grain Farm, you increase the productivity to 667% 👌

Calculation: With the 100% extra productivity boost, the production time is now lowered to 15 seconds. Every third cycle the farm produces 2 extra grain (1 for the barn, the other for the silo). That means in 3 minutes, the farm will have produced 3 * 4 grain itself, plus 4 cycles of 2 extra, so 12 + 8 = 20 grain in 3 minutes. That is a production of 6,67 grain per minute, which is a productivity of 667%.

Insane, right?