Cid's antics are great as usual, but I'm forming a theory. Basically I think the super smart, knows everything Shadow does exist... In Cid's subconscious. We understand that Cid's power is the real deal, he's no doubt the strongest character and we know for a fact that he obtained said power through sheer effort. Here's the thing, I think he also developed the smarts that Shadow displays for everyone. The reason why he's not Shadow all the time is for one reason, he still thinks he's grounded in reality. He still thinks that all of his fake, his fights are with nameless bandits, and that his happy subordinates are just indulging in his RPG just as he is. To support this, we see that he brought in stories, music, and even tech from our world and from his piano skills still being superior to his subordinates, this shows that Cid was a talented individual, even though he had weird fantasies. Here's the theory, because Cid feels grounded in reality, in his mind he creates the actual "Shadow". This subconscious Shadow has been directing Cid to do all of the super awesome things that his subordinates see. So when he picks a random spot where he thinks the cult hideout is, for Cid it was a random spot, but Shadow actually did deduced that location and nudged Cid's throw to that location. Each time Cid pretends that he's Shadow, the actual Shadow comes out and does his awesome thing.