If your a new player you will soon feel the sting of upkeep and begin, like so many before you to curse its name.
What I'm going to offer you is some medicine that you will not want to take, but take it you will! For the power of Frank compels you!
What you need to do is RP an ultra light infantry charcter. You can go peasant or noble, shielder or pole arm but the most important thing is to keep your gear cheap, and your build viable.
For peasant pole arms I find 24/12 or 24/15 to be excellent. My preference is 24/12 because it gives you much more IF.
24 Str
12 Agi
8IF
8PS
4ATH
4MW
140 Pole arm WPF
For gear I like to roll anything lower than a nomad robe staying bellow 6.3 Kilograms lets you unleash all you ATH which makes that 4ath really quiet speedy.
So what I roll is, Leather Jerkin, Leather Glove or anything up mail gauntlets (but with armour this low its really not going to mater), boots bellow .8 KG.
As far as weapons go, Quarter Staff which is really pretty damn effective and super cheap. But you options are, Volouge, QStaff, Fauchard, Military Fork & last but not least Military Scythe.
Don't listen to anyone talking shit about these weapons. Sure there are much better weapons but you can still easily and repeatedly rip peoples heads off with these bad mother fuckers. Its all down to your skill and determination to chop people real good.
Shielder
18STR
18AGI
6IF
6PS
6Shield
6ATH
5MW
148 WPF
For shielder don't go above 4k cost with the weapon. I recommend Yanmaodao, Flanged Mace, Military Sickle, Light one handed battle axe, Iron Battle Axe. For shield Round Cav Shield. Same armour as the pole arm build.
2H
21STR
18AGI
7IF
7PS
6ATH
3WM
133 WPF
Weapons anything up to the Heavy Bastard Sword. I recommend Bastard Sword, HBS, Bardiche, Dadao, Mallet, Goedendag. Armour same as above.
The basic idea is to try and keep your upkeep bellow 500 gold. I keep it bellow 200 with the pole arm build and can pull a hell of a lot of gold out of a gen. Once you complete a gen I recommend flogging the loom point you can get 650k.