by gforce088
Thanks! Your comment and a lot of the others have been very helpful!I'm going to take the board-design as law over the printed directions for now, since that seems more permanent and visually in my face than the rule book.
Opinion: This question has a medium-low importance in game play, since if the Exiled States of America gets taken as an invasion point, the invader will have either 3 or 2 territories connected to ESA to worry about backlash into Europe from or to further penetrate into the North American continent through. A 1 or 2 territory question of this type would have been more critical, but all other areas of the board are blatantly free from ambiguity :).