I've seen some of you have had the same "problems" with XCOM as I have. So I got the Second Wave mod and started playing with the ini files. So far I've modded them into three different mods. One for Marathon and everything but Diminishing Returns and possibly Results Driven on classic+ (Marathon), one for when you want Diminishing Returns and possibly Results Driven active on classic+ (Second Wave), and one for Vanilla classic Marathon (Vanilla classic).
For Second Wave to be active you have to have completed the game or at least find someone's savegame for that.

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This mod is ONLY made to be played with Marathon active. Otherwise prices will be wrong.

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I've made classic+ a lot harder. It's a merge between classic and impossible marked with (classic+) under tactical, everything else is also in Vanilla classic. I haven't edited easy, normal, or impossible (they should still be playable but I haven't tested it yet). These are the changes:

Tactical gameplay:
• Aliens have as much hp as on impossible (classic+).
• Aliens have classic aim, crit, and a very slightly lower ability useage than impossible (classic+).
• Slightly more will on ranking up.
• ~150 % xp needed to level up.
• Chryssalid kills have 75 % chance of zombies outside of vision, up from 50 % (classic+).

Strategical gameplay:
• Continentel bonuses tweaked so they're equal (research times on autopsys and interrogations are lowered making South America not completly needed to have a chance)
• Panic levels are tweaked to be more in tone with Marathon
• Cost of items, buildings, research, officer training, and foundry upgrades tweaked to be in tone with marathon.
• Lategame research times increased by around 10 %.
• The continent bonuses won't be shown correctly when chooseing base location, they are as following:
• Asia: 40 % discount on OTS and Foundry - it will say 60 % when you choose base location.
• Europe: 60 % discount on Labs and Workshops - it will say 40 % when you choose base location.
• Africa: 20 % higher total income (already worked).
• North America: 70 % discount on interceptors and their equipment - it will say 30 % when you choose base location.
• South America: Instant autopsy and interrogation (already worked). Research times are lowered for all autopsys and interrogations to nerf South America's bonus.

I would be very happy to get any and all kinds of feedback so we can tone this to be as perfect as possible.

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To install the mod all you need to do is extract the .rar anywhere you want and run the modpatcher.exe of the mod you want to install ([each folder is a different mod] you can't have more than one installed since they edit the XComGame.exe), if you want to try an other mod, simply run the associated modpatcher.exe. The patcher will make a backup of the original XComGame.exe and call it xcom-original.exe (won't be overwritten if you patch an other mod) which can be found at ..\Steam\steamapps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\Binaries\Win32. If you want to diable all mods, simply delete the XComGame.exe and rename xcom-original.exe to XComGame.exe.

Installing a mod will change saved games. But if you go back to the original .exe it will be as before. So all that's needed is to swap the two .exe if you want a game with the mod and a game without.

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v1.01 is out. Found a "bug" in the ini files - the continent bonuses are registered inversed. balanced a few items worth, and added 10 % on lategame research times.