As Almohads in vanilla/hard/early, I got the 60% winner message in 1162. I could have done it 2-3 years faster but micromanaging the flow of peasant peacekeepers to newly conquered areas was too tedious. By 1130 we were at the "more money than we can spend" stage and by 1140 no enemy stack would even fight a battle. The only real challenge was peacekeeping, and that's not fun, so I'm not trying 100%.

I think Almohads are the easiest because they start with 6 provinces, can make good units, have easy chokepoints, and quick access to the two key areas (Iberia and the Eastern Med).