After playing roughly 150 turns and acquiring what feels like a reasonably sized empire (all tribal turf on Western North Africa, Cyrene, 90% of Iberia), I think I got enough of a grasp on the most apparent design choices and mechanics of the faction. Honestly, I had fun, mostly because I did things really different than I usually do (building lots of allied governments and skirmishing cavalry armies), but I think there's lot of room for improvement. They are half finished on their own way, not like the Lusitanae that are very generic and without unique factional differences, but because their unique mechanics and factional differences were not sufficiently evolved to make much of a difference, so while the potential is clearly there, it seems like it was just left short of realizing it.
My main grip are the pre-reform government choices. I can only talk about pre-reform because despite my best efforts I couldn't quite make the reform despite the 150 turns. Your government is directly mostly (to not say entirely) on the development and profiteering out of nomadic settlements. You can build a Urban Administration that will allow you to develop the land until it becomes a settled area, and with a very high Steppe Nomadism rating, the Subjugated Tribe, which gives +1000 minae a turn if you are friends with Carthage and very good military capabilities (focused on cavalry). Anything else will be a Tributary, which gives added income based on present trade goods, free-upkeep slots and farming bonus, but completely stunted development options. So that will result on you being able to only actively improve the 6 nomadic settlements in Africa (good luck beating the Egyptians to Libya though), being forced to either go allied government to have some degree of development elsewhere, or Tributary and hope to make some profit out of it. At least two of these 6 settlements are strongly Arid Nomadism though, so you will have to wait a good while (namely, more than my 150 turns) to get the chance to do Urban or Subjugated on them. So that makes it a whooping 3 settlements you can develop with your factional government until you reform, which requires you to settle 4 nomadic camps. Numbers are not on your favor.
Edit: I think Subjugated Tribe should be locked by province, rather than steppe nomadism. The idea that Carthage will pay you to keep a Steppe Nomad tribe you created in a previously Arid settlement in check is a bit odd to say the least.
Furthermore, I am really not a fan of Tributary. The absence of any recruitment will make garrisoning these settlements extremely awkward, having to rely on the local pool of mercenaries (luckily they seem to interact with the free upkeep slots). They offer a unique trait for the governor, Tribute Collector, that immediately awards +10% tax and seems to have the opportunity for developing further, but the only outcome I got so far was Corrupted Tribute Collector, adding +1 Unrest and -5% tax (cumulative with the previous trait, so you are still making +5% tax) on every governor, even ones that would later get the highest levels of the Just trait line. At least you are getting something, and the other "advanced" factional government types also award a governor trait (no apparent evolution) with small but useful bonuses, so I guess I will be hard pressed to find outright harmful governors like I so often did with the Greek.
My other problem with the factional governments is that they seem to curb your active expansion until you are reformed. You have no special interactions within Africa, you have no special interactions with Greek Poleis, no interactions with Carthaginian Colonies, no interaction with Iberian lands, nothing. If it is not one of these 6 mentioned nomadic provinces, you either go Tributary and have the place unable to fend for itself, or go Allied and have to get a client ruling the place.
Finally, I will not repeat myself, so the criticism on this bug report (https://www.twcenter.net/forums/show...-Service-issue) will be echoed. Edit: I'd like to point out that the majority of my generals that partook on the mercenary adventures got negative outcomes, which is not bad, just something worth keeping in mind.
Overall, my enjoyment came mostly of the battles I fought and the surprising effectiveness of skirmishing cavalry. With pretty much any other faction, at 150 turns, I would be close to beating the game, so maybe the Numidae provided the intended challenge, but simply because I couldn't do anything about it. What I did on Iberia I would have done better with basically any faction, even India, because I would at least not have to rely on Allied Government to make something useful out of the place. I will try to play them again and pay special attention to the nomad camps to try to get my reform as soon as I can and see how it goes.