How can I use a different template file for the blog index's paginated pages?

Question

I tried different tests to make the home (a blog index, 3 latest posts) page use a different template than it's following generated paginated pages (blog.com/page/2). Essentially what I am trying to do is get my home page looking different with latest posts and the "Next Posts" links to the /page/2 with a different template. I thought this was common but can't seem to get it working.

Test 1:

In Settings->Reading->Homepage Display I set to "Your latest posts". Created a 'home.php' file with has_posts() loop and pagination. is_home() and is_front_page() returns true on both the home page and its following paginated pages.

Test 2:

In Settings->Reading->Homepage Display, I set to "Static Page" and set it to a Page I created in the Pages section. Created a page-home.php template file it reads from. is_home() returns false and is_front_page() returns true on both the home page and its following paginated pages.

Test 3:

The obvious page.php template file didn't work.

Answer 1

You can use this:

$paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;

$paged will have the value 1 in you are or the first page or the value of respective pagination page number.

Depending on this you can call get_template_part() to load the desired template for the page.

Let me know if this helps.

Answer 2

https://developer.wordpress.org/files/2014/10/wp-hierarchy.png

should use archive template for this.