Perhaps he´s like me and feels it wrong to take control over regions that there´s no way Carthage could ever have controlled.
It doesn't feel really wrong. These province have very attractive mines, that alone is worth the few buggers to take them. The Numidians are too easy to defeat, I concur on that. I had really lots of rebellions in that area for a long time in my own 1.0 Carthage campaign, which I could perfectly roleplay as constant local uprisings and rebellions of the local populace. I had two or three generals who spent twenty years or more just with travelling through Numidia and putting down rebellions, some of these even with nellies...

The Romans controlled that territory and fought hard wars over it, so could have done the Carthies. But I think everyone has to find his own preference when it come to balancing between totally sticking to what really happened in history, and absolutely free roaming. Sometimes I think the EB-team is too much stuck with history (think of Makedonian recruitment options in Seleukid territory which could easily be exactly the same), but that's perhaps only me and not intended as critique.