HFM or HPM?

[BobbyDisastrous]

I'm downloading HFM right now, what makes it better than HPM?(If at all)

[what am i doing]

HPM is basically like an unofficial patch for V2. Fixes a bunch of stuff, enhances the game in general, but overall the gameplay experience is still "vanilla, but better."

HFM conversely does a fair amount of railroading. It does have some interesting alternate-history railroading branches, which is nice; some of them fairly lengthy (ie Rhine Crisis -> Rhineland puppet -> France annexes Rhine -> Austria calls Leipzig Conference and unifies Germany, this takes place over a few decades ingame) but it's definitely a different experience from vanilla or HPM. It also changes the map a lot, especially scaling and shape of German minors. The HFM map is really nice, and I do wish HPM and BAI would use it too.

The third mod that deserves mention is Blood & Iron or BAI. BAI is, in a way, a spiritual successor to /gsg/ vickymod (and does in fact include a lot of events and decisions from that mod). It's less close to vanilla than HPM, but less railroading than HFM. Really goes its own direction. Adds some nice stuff like Stormtroopers, brings back the Minister mechanics, allows NV changing and has a ton of NVs, little stuff like being able to embrace the Slovak minority as Hungary, a new wave of crusades if you form Italy as the Papal States, all sorts of stuff... BAI is really a fantastic mod if you enjoyed /gsg/ vickymod or want something that goes in the opposite direction from HFM. Where HFM railroads, HPM adds more freedom, and does it in a good way.

tl;dr

HPM is vanilla but better
HFM is very historical but also very railroading
BAI is like HPM but with lots of added gameplay options

None are specifically better than each other, it's more what kind of game you want. But all are better than vanilla; if you like vanilla then HPM is the way to go. But, just about everything HPM does, the other two mods do as well, so you aren't missing out on anything from HPM by picking HFM or BAI. They share a lot of base content.

[BigFloyd]

I'm having troubles installing HFM. I put everything in the right place but it won't show up in the launcher.

[Hat8]

Originally posted by Nahtemai:

I'm downloading HFM right now, what makes it better than HPM?(If at all)

You could also try other mods like PDM or any of the PDM submods.