The Players Notes (also in the zip file) I repost here:
Colonies 4.3 (by John Ellis)
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A scenario for Civilization II MGE (by Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds) set between 1630 and 1780 in Europe and North America. It requires Civilization II MGE (Ultimate Civ) edition, in order to handle the gigamap. I believe conversions of earlier versions have been done for ToT, so if anybody would care to do one for 4.3, please be my guest!
I decided to do an update on this scenario (which is my own favourite, I think) when some idle curiosity one day found me looking up my old stuff on Scenario League and CivFanatics. I was amazed to see some people still played some of my scenarios, and that they were kind enough to say some nice things about them. So I started replaying them myself. I enjoyed returning to Colonies IV especially, but I could see some glaring problems that for some reason hadn't worried me too much at the time. These were, in decreasing order of severity:
1) As soon as Company Traders (Freight) became available, it got WAY too easy for the human player. Large sums of money and huge tech bosts could be farmed almost at will. I put this failure down to insufficiently long playtesting of the original on my part.
2) Science generally became too easy, for this and other reasons, in the later game, and after around 1750 or so, one was reduced to researching "Future Tech"
3) Some of the graphics (which looked OK to me at the time) hadn't aged well.
So, locked down as we (most of us) were with Covid-19, I set out to address these, and ended up tweaking quite a few other things on the way...
Designer's Notes
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3rd Party Credits:
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Most of the military unit graphic upgrades have been lifted from various of Fairline's published graphics packs - which seem to be the current Gold Standard for troop graphics and I can quite see why. Most of the better naval unit graphic upgrades have been lifted from Morten Blaabjerg's "Armada" scenario, which has the best Age of Sail ship .gif images I've ever seen. (Which is a very good scenario in itself, by the way. I particularly like how the English capture Galleons, rather than sink them - which was much more the way things usually turned out IRL)
The Period (1630-1780)
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Unchanged. Should be more fun playing the scenario right to the end now, if you have the time. It's still 300 turns, though! And the last 50 tend to be Total War against you, if you are doing as well as you should be...
Oh, and something the Pedia doesn't tell you (because they are unbuildable) is that there are Royal Naval Dockyards in London, Portsmouth, Rouen, Cadiz, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Karlskrona and Amsterdam that can churn out veteran warships...
Change Log vs Colonies 4.2
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Global changes:
1) Tech paradigm changed from 45 to 40 (but trade boosts for tech have been cut right back)
2) Communism (Absolute Monarchy) gets 2 units free of support per city, rather than just 1
3) Fundamentalism (Revolutionary Govt.) gets 3 units free of support per city, rather than 0
4) The Company Trader unit removed, and replaced with the (Spanish) Treasure Galleon.
5) The tech that enabled Company Trader was worked into the economic tech tree differently
6) Castles start out as obsolete
7) I have reduced the cost of a Municipal Canal so it is more worthwhile building. Maintenance is still zero
8) Hills are a +50% defense bonus, as is Forest. Jungle is -50% on defence, as is Swamp. Mountains are still +100% bonus. All else is still "normal".
9) The Colonial Traiffs Wonder no longer expires. Much more useful now.
10) All regular infantry (17th & 18 Century) move 2 except Garrisons (1) and Clansmen (3). The "x2 vs Inf." flag (Original Civ: Pikeman) is now much more useful
11) Artillery, of all types, is generally more expensive
National changes:
1) The Spanish now have three Treasure Galleon units, one of them in the Pacific. They can't build more, but new ones are granted them by events from time to time. It enables them to carry the increased number of Commodities units they now have (mostly Gold, Silver and Tobacco) from the New World (The Philipines, Central America, Mexico and the Carribean) back to Europe. This unit is different from a standard Carrack in that, apart from a MUCH better defence value, it also does not have the Trireme flag that all the other ships in the game do. So getting those high value Commodities back to Europe is much less risky, albeit slightly slower. This is very important for a human Spanish player. This will give them nice money and tech boosts for as long as the commodities last out. New Commodities are not created (because they would all be Furs-types) but Spain starts off with many more of them now. Many of them are in Manilla though, so have a long journey to make...
2) Non-Spanish. The English, French and Swedes can now destroy a Treasure Galleon, for a large financial reward. Other than this, they need to rely on the fur trade as before (plus a very few starting Commodities), and upon modernising their Government form as soon as they can. (The Dutch don't get this option, as they have enough money anyway, and events space is limited)
3) The English now get Radicalism* on a 1:100 chance (used to be 1:150)
4) The French now get Radicalism* on a 1:150 chance (used to be 1:200). These changes are because Radicalism opens up such interesting possibilities for everyone.
5) The Spanish don't have Letters of Marque (Privateers and Privateersmen) to start. Everyone else does.
6) The Hapsburgs now start with the Great Library Wonder in Vienna, to help them stay up with the quicker technical development in the rest of Europe. It doesn't hinder the game unless the human player takes the Hapsburgs...
7) The French have a starting Carrack in Quebec to help their Hunters move around, and a Cathedral in Grenoble because (a) it needs it and (b) there was one.
8) The French get Great Cardinal Dies* at the end of the Autumn 1642 turn, rather than on a 1:50 chance. This is partly because Cardinal Richlieu actually died then but mainly because the French rarely seem to get the change on the random chance, and they need it for Absolutism, which is really something I want them to be able to go for in the early-to-mid game.
I have also changed some of the unit strengths (attack/defence values and hp/fp) but only in small ways. Also some minor tweaks to the unit costs. Mostly, these are for the 18th Century units you get with State Commission Army and are designed to make the differences between unit types more interesting and realistic.
I'd love feedback on how these changes have worked. You can contact me via the PatientEnglish username on CivFanatics. I won't put my email on here, but I can send that via PM if anyone needs it.
John Ellis (CivFan: PatientEnglish)
Bath, UK
Summer, 2020
I was playing STC recently, as it happens. It would certainly be the next scenario of mine up for a makeover - but maybe I should uplift it to ToT first and use some of the new features there? I am investigating what ToT/lua can achieve and if I see a good reason to use those tools with STC....well, I'll have to learn some new scripting skills.... 
If you ever plan to revisit any of your scenarios in ToT I have units / people / terrain sets for all of them I think.
