1.4 Ibadi Tlemcen is incredible
R5: All Muslim countries received a massive buff this patch with the new bureaucraties. But Tlemcen specifically is a very special case, as it may now have one of the highest (if not straight up the highest) base max control ceiling in the game, and achievable fairly early at that.
Tlemcen starts with a unique government reform (only available for this tag), "Bānu 'Abd āl-Wād Investiture", providing +5% max control at 100% tribes satisfaction (the tooltip says 10% max control but it is wrong). It also gives +0.20 legitimacy and +100% tribes levy size, at the cost of an overall -25% levy size.
They can combine this with Tribal Strongholds, a Tribes privilege giving +5% max control in rural.
Add to this the new Mazalim Court bureaucracy for +10% max control with 100% entrenchment. You can easily grab it at the start of Age 2 with the Islamic Jurisprudence advance.
Add to this Barony Rule, an Age 3 government reform requiring 50+ Decentralization and 50+ Aristocracy for +5% max control in rural.
Now switch to Ibadi and you will have access to the "Centralize the Majlis 'Ammi Sa'īd" decision, requiring 28 provinces in the "Ibadi heartland of the Maghreb" and over 40 stability. This decision unlocks the "Centralized Majlis 'Ammi Sa'īd" government reform that provides yet another 5% max control (and other goodies).
Work toward the "Masters of the Sahara" decision that gives +2.5% max control as well (the requirements include having 15 provinces in the Sahara with 18+ development though and it's gonna take a while, in this campaign I have not reached this point yet).
With all this, in a core rural location with 0 proximity, you get:
20 (core) + 5 (Tlemcen unique reform) + 5 (Ibadi unique reform) + 10 (Mazalim Court) + 5 (Tribes privilege) + 5 (Barony Rule) + 2.5 (Masters of Sahara) = 52.5% base max control. Add a Bailiff on top of that and you get rural locations up to 72.5% control with 0 proximity. This is just an insane number, which again is achievable very early (at least 70%, if we ignore Masters of Sahara). Add and stack some proximity on top of it and you may very well get near 100 control in most of your land as the game goes on.
Urban locations can also reach very high ceilings with just the Tlemcen and Ibadi unique reforms combined with Mazalim Court and Masters of Sahara, along with the usual max control buffs from city rank, council halls, etc.
All this makes Tlemcen extremely rewarding to play. On top of it, switching to Ibadi also gives access to the "Claim Rustamid Legacy" decision, giving +1 cabinet seat and changes your colour to a beautiful dark blue (!!) . Ibadi also has some very strong laws, giving prosperity, morale, and one giving +50% levy size.
The start is tough as you begin at war with Morocco and Tunis, and fighting a two front war in the Maghreb with no fort to prevent them from occupying almost all of your land is not very pleasant, to say the least. But your levies are extremely strong. I had to restart quite a few times until I find an efficient way of winning this war and take max money from Morocco. Most of your land is also not core at start, so you will have to go over culture cap and accept Algerian, Kabyle, and Mozabite.
From there you slowly improve your economy (I personally built a market in Tlemcen), build a couple of forts to secure your borders, and later on take on Tunis and Morocco. In this campaign I am planning to form Morocco (tier 2) after killing it for its strong advances, then Al Andalus (tier 3), and finally Carthage (tier 4).
Overall having a lot of fun with it, and definitely recommend giving it a try. It truly feels like a rags to riches campaign, with huge early challenges but big potential rewards, well spaced during the campaign, which is something I miss a little in Eu5. I can see these numbers being nerfed because 72.5% max control with 0 proximity is just ridiculous, but I hope we keep getting this kind of love & unique rewards for underdog tags because that's exactly what makes playing these nations fun in my opinion.